Every December, newspapers publish lists of schools ranked by median study score and the share of students above 40. Parents read them, compare, and quietly wonder whether they made the right choice. It is a reasonable thing to wonder. It is also a question the tables cannot answer.
What a school's results measure
A school's median study score tells you about the students who enrolled there, the teaching they received, and the culture around them. It does not tell you what any individual student would have scored somewhere else. Selective schools sit at the top of the tables because they select their intake on an exam. Many high-fee independent schools sit high because their families are heavily invested in education before the student ever walks in. Neither of those facts says much about what happens to a particular Year 7 over the following six years.
The honest reading of the tables is that they describe cohorts. Your child is not a cohort.
The teacher matters more than the badge
Ask anyone who scored highly in the VCE what made the difference and you will rarely hear the name of a school. You will hear the name of a teacher. The quality of a student's experience in Methods or Chemistry depends overwhelmingly on who is standing at the front of the room, and that is not something fees reliably buy. An expensive school can deal a weak teacher. A local government school can have a Physics department that has produced raw 45s for a decade.
This is the roll-of-the-dice problem at the heart of Australian schooling: the teaching varies from classroom to classroom, and families have very little control over which one their child lands in. It is also the problem a good external system is designed to remove, by making the quality of teaching and resources consistent regardless of what happens at school.
How moderation evens things out
One mechanism that surprises families: SAC results are statistically moderated by the VCAA. Because different schools set and mark different SACs, each school's SAC scores are adjusted so that their level and spread match how that school's students perform on the external exam. The rank order within the school is preserved.
Two consequences follow. A generous school marker does not give students a lasting advantage, because the external exam pulls the SAC scores back into line. And the exam, which every student in the state sits under identical conditions, is where the real comparison happens. Two students with the same understanding and the same exam technique will end up in a very similar place, whatever school name is printed on their report.
What the high achievers have in common
Contour's own results cut across school type. In 2025, 117 Contour students scored a 99+ ATAR, more than any single school in Australia, and they came from selective, independent, Catholic and government schools across Melbourne. One of the students we have profiled on this blog finished with a 99.55 from a government school in Melbourne's east, after failing three major exams along the way.
What they share is not a school. It is a set of habits: a weekly rhythm that does not depend on motivation, practice under timed conditions well before October, a reliable place to take questions, and an honest view of their own weaknesses. Those habits can be built at any school, and they are rarely taught by any school.
What this means for your decision
If you are choosing a school, choose for the things that are hard to replicate: the peer culture, the breadth of subjects, the pastoral care, the commute. Do not choose on the basis of a league table, because the number you are reading describes other people's children.
If your child is already at a school and you are wondering whether it is holding them back, the better question is whether they have what the high achievers have. Consistent teaching, structured practice, exam exposure and support when they are stuck can be added around any school. They cannot be bought by changing the badge.
Where Contour fits
Contour Education exists to make the quality of a student's learning consistent, whatever school they attend. Every subject runs the same weekly class, the same workbooks, the same invigilated mock exams and the same unlimited support, taught by tutors who recently sat the same exam and excelled in it. Our classes are full of students from every kind of school, which is part of what makes the peer group valuable. If you would like to see how it works for your child's subjects, every program opens with an obligation-free trial.
