These visualisation highlights strong school completion rates (Year 12 or Certificate II and above) across Greater Sydney. The animation links our research to Thrive’s logo—the gum flower (Corymbia ficifolia)—which symbolises growth and resilience. Each part of the flower reflects key components of our modelling, illustrating the connection between data and purpose.
In this visualisation, we emphasise the significant school completion rates (completion of Year 12 or attainment of a Certificate II or higher) within the Greater Sydney Area as compared to the rest of New South Wales. Additionally, we illustrate the positive correlation between school completion rates in suburbs across New South Wales and their respective socio-economic status. At Thrive, we create methodologies to uncover the underlying factors that influence student academic performance and well-being, with the goal of supporting students facing educational disadvantages. Data from Education and Work, Australia (2023) and ACARA.
This animation connects our logo, an illustration of a gum flower (Corymbia ficifolia) to the research conducted by Thrive. To describe this animation, we must first make the connection between the flower and the components of our modelling efforts: The flower itself represents an individual, the yellow and white anthers (the tip of the stems/stamens) correspond to the factors that affect student outcomes, and the stamens that connect the anthers with the flower represent the causal relationships between factors.
The animation commences with the flower's stamens flickering, which represents both the uncertainty in how factors are causally related, and our search using MCMC methods, to sample valid causal relationships from these factors. After many iterations of this sampling process, we find a graph that suggests the most likely causal relationships. In the animation, the graph transforms from the flower itself, morphing into a human interpretable representation, particularly connecting characteristics of the students and their families to school attendance.
Lastly, the animation depicts how these causal pathways can potentially connect to outcomes (through dashed lines) – including Wellbeing, Academic Performance and Equity. The diagram also shows how initiatives around Mentoring, Responsible Adult Support and Sense of Belonging could result in positive impacts through the causal pathways that map to outcomes.
Thrive's research is at the core of the process, combining community voices, existing research, and educational expertise with statistics and computer science to: figure out measurable outcomes that represent "finishing school well"; what are the likely causal pathways that dictate individual pathways; and what are the best interventions that can help all students to thrive.
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