McDonald Park School

Government primary school in Mount Gambier, SA

School score 29Area advantage (CAI) 10 · bottom 9% of suburbsArea Y12 39.3%Attendance 88.9% (SA, Semester 1 2023)

What this page can and cannot tell you 1 of 2 school-level measures · zone mapped

Attendance: 88.9% (SA, Semester 1 2023). The SA department publishes a rate for this school, and its change since 2019.
No destinations figure. We hold no destinations figure for any SA school in this snapshot, so we show none for any of them. Why ▸
Enrolment zone: mapped. Its Primary catchment is the shaded area on this page (SA 2023, CC BY 4.0).

How our numbers work ▸

Sector	Government
Type	Primary
Year levels	Reception to Year 6
Community Advantage Index (area percentile)	10 — bottom 9% of Australian suburbs (Lower advantage)
Area Year-12 attainment	39.3%
School attendance	88.9% (SA, Semester 1 2023)
Value-add (attendance vs area)	+5.3 pts vs what its area predicts among SA schools (SA, Semester 1 2023) — outperforms its area. In plain words: more students turn up here than at SA schools sitting in similarly advantaged areas.
Enrolment growth (~5 yr)	-35.7% (SA, FTE, Term 3 2019→Term 3 2024) shrinking (population & capacity signal — not quality, not popularity)
Attendance trend (vs 2019)	-3.5 pts (SA, Semester 1, 2019 to 2023)
Enrolment catchment	Primary zone shown on the map above — check if an address is in this zone ▸ (SA 2023, CC BY 4.0)
Suburb	Mount Gambier, SA

Attendance, 2019 to 2023 (SA series, Semester 1). McDonald Park School recorded 92.4% in 2019 and 88.9% (SA, Semester 1 2023) — 3.5 percentage points lower. The vertical scale is set to this school's own attendance range (80–100%), so the steepness of this line cannot be compared with another school's. SA's series counts every full-time student, with no year-level restriction, so compare it only with other SA schools. Attendance is the department's own figure; it is not a measure of teaching quality. How the attendance trend works ▸

School score 29/100 blends this school's own published attendance with the advantage and Year-12 attainment of its area. It is our estimate from open data — not an official rating, not ICSEA, and not a measure of teaching quality.

Area advantage (CAI) — our Community Advantage Index — is our own estimate of the surrounding community's socio-educational advantage, derived from ABS SEIFA. It is a percentile, not a score out of 100: a CAI of 10 means this suburb sits in the bottom 9% of Australian suburbs we hold a figure for (14,490 of them). It describes the suburb, so every school in Mount Gambier shares it. It is a community indicator, not a school-quality score, and is not ICSEA. How the Community Advantage Index is calculated ▸

Nearby schools

The closest schools to McDonald Park School, ordered by distance — not by any score.

St Martins Lutheran College Independent combined · 653 m
Melaleuca Park Primary School Government primary · 1.6 km
Mount Gambier North Primary School Government primary · 1.8 km
Reidy Park Primary School Government primary · 2.1 km
Gordon Education Centre Government special · 2.2 km
Grant High School Government secondary · 2.4 km

All schools in Mount Gambier ▸

Buying or renting in this zone?

A school's catchment is one of the things families weigh when choosing a home — but a home in Mount Gambier is not automatically inside this school's zone. This school's Primary catchment is the shaded area on the map above.

Check an exact address is in this zone ▸

Browse listings in Mount Gambier: homes for sale · rentals (realestate.com.au — a suburb search, so confirm each address with Zone check above)

What to do next

Check your address is in this zone ▸ A home in Mount Gambier is not automatically inside it.
Compare McDonald Park School with nearby schools ▸