schooling/teaching standards in Perth
#76
Just Joined
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 9
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
As I've said before, I do place importance on academic results, but as I've also said, I don't think it's the be all and end all. Look my kids are probably more fortunate than a lot of kids because we can choose the type of school we send them to and can provide them with a lot of extra curricular activities. As I just said to Mikey, you seem to assume that because I want them to enjoy life that they will surely have no future. My girls have a ballet teacher who is 92 and still teaches five days a week - if she stops she will die - it's been her life and she's loved her life. Can't say that about most Bank Managers I know.
My experience has been consistent:
o Reading and arithmetic teaching is shockingly poor in the early years and not a patch on the UK. If you make up for this at home your kid will do well. It picks up in year three but the trouble is by then a significant minority of the kids have real problems - mainly unecessarily from my perspective because of the crap teaching- and struggle to keep up.
o In things like science, civic duty, sports, etc. the schooling has been excellent. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the level of knoweldge in some areas.
o In mid to upper primary, providing your kid hasn't been compromised by his early years, the schooling isn't bad. Still, as in the UK, a bit sloppy on stuff like grammar and short changing the kids there (seem to think anything other than the basic noun/verb/adjective is too dificult and irrelevant for kids).
o OBE and OBE report cards are woeful and wishy washy touch-feely. I've a good numerate degree and a repsonsible job and I struggled to understand how my kids are performing from the report cards.
Bottom line: take some responsibility for your kids and spend half an hour a night with them on the basics whether or not the school gives homework and they'll probably do fine. Leave it to the school at your own risk. I'd be very careful about sending them to a state school in a dodgy suburb - if the ones in the good suburbs are bad on basics in the early years the dodgier ones may be atrocious.
#77
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Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Perth
Posts: 3,453
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
I totally understand what you are saying but I just don't like the underlying inference (whether you mean it or not) that those of us that don't have an option but to send our kids to other schools (or in fact don't want to) will somehow end up with a no hoper of a school leaver. My eldest daughter isn't going to be a brain surgeon. She is a straight across the board B student in Grade 5. I think she would be out of her depth at a high flying school like Churchlands.
I'm attacking the system not parents. My kids aren't going to be brain surgeons - but that doesn't mean that I don't want them stretched to their limits academically. A grade B student across the board is excellent - if this is her potential being realised. The danger is that in the wrong school or with the wrong teacher, a grade B student could easily become a grade C student. It's all about achieving a child's potential not about everyone being a rocket scientist.
Kim - or whoever - earlier said that they no houses were less than $900K in the catchmenst of these schools. That plainly is not true and many of the later posts stemmed from this.
We all can only make choices which are practical. My kids won't be going to my first choice school. The overall point of my involvement in this thread is not to denounce parents who don't have a choice, it's about the WA govt and the Australian federal govt for that matter, not encouraging consistent, systematic improvement in schools by providing transparency and accountability.
#78
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
Wasn't me mate - I wouldn't live more than 5km out of the Perth city and I don't. Same when we lived in Brisbane - I'm an inner city dweller purely to give my kids the best opportunities they can have. Moving to Dubai in the next couple of weeks though so that will probably be a different story. Kim
#79
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
Wasn't me mate - I wouldn't live more than 5km out of the Perth city and I don't. Same when we lived in Brisbane - I'm an inner city dweller purely to give my kids the best opportunities they can have. Moving to Dubai in the next couple of weeks though so that will probably be a different story. Kim
#80
Forum Regular
Joined: Jan 2008
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 147
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
I've been here a few years now. I can't comment on secondary education from personal experience but we've been seen three primaries: 1 state (in a very good area) and 2 catholic (in goodish areas).
My experience has been consistent:
o Reading and arithmetic teaching is shockingly poor in the early years and not a patch on the UK. If you make up for this at home your kid will do well. It picks up in year three but the trouble is by then a significant minority of the kids have real problems - mainly unecessarily from my perspective because of the crap teaching- and struggle to keep up.
o In things like science, civic duty, sports, etc. the schooling has been excellent. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the level of knoweldge in some areas.
o In mid to upper primary, providing your kid hasn't been compromised by his early years, the schooling isn't bad. Still, as in the UK, a bit sloppy on stuff like grammar and short changing the kids there (seem to think anything other than the basic noun/verb/adjective is too dificult and irrelevant for kids).
o OBE and OBE report cards are woeful and wishy washy touch-feely. I've a good numerate degree and a repsonsible job and I struggled to understand how my kids are performing from the report cards.
Bottom line: take some responsibility for your kids and spend half an hour a night with them on the basics whether or not the school gives homework and they'll probably do fine. Leave it to the school at your own risk. I'd be very careful about sending them to a state school in a dodgy suburb - if the ones in the good suburbs are bad on basics in the early years the dodgier ones may be atrocious.
My experience has been consistent:
o Reading and arithmetic teaching is shockingly poor in the early years and not a patch on the UK. If you make up for this at home your kid will do well. It picks up in year three but the trouble is by then a significant minority of the kids have real problems - mainly unecessarily from my perspective because of the crap teaching- and struggle to keep up.
o In things like science, civic duty, sports, etc. the schooling has been excellent. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the level of knoweldge in some areas.
o In mid to upper primary, providing your kid hasn't been compromised by his early years, the schooling isn't bad. Still, as in the UK, a bit sloppy on stuff like grammar and short changing the kids there (seem to think anything other than the basic noun/verb/adjective is too dificult and irrelevant for kids).
o OBE and OBE report cards are woeful and wishy washy touch-feely. I've a good numerate degree and a repsonsible job and I struggled to understand how my kids are performing from the report cards.
Bottom line: take some responsibility for your kids and spend half an hour a night with them on the basics whether or not the school gives homework and they'll probably do fine. Leave it to the school at your own risk. I'd be very careful about sending them to a state school in a dodgy suburb - if the ones in the good suburbs are bad on basics in the early years the dodgier ones may be atrocious.
I can only speak for Victoria and not W.A. but primary schools here are generally good to excellent and if our school is any example the teachers are second to none.
Last edited by melbournegirl; Jul 10th 2008 at 7:11 am.
#81
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,560
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
A few parents i knew from my daughters old school choose to take there kids from school and start home schooling its seems to be a common thing over here.
#82
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Perth
Posts: 3,453
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
By the way NKSK you seem to be really pushing Churchlands. I've come back to Perth after a decade away and all I remember of this school is the most horrific school murder Perth has ever had. I know this has nothing to do with the standard of education at the school, but just goes to prove that no school is perfect.
Did you want to infer that because it was the only high performing school where a murder took place?
I've already stated which schools (plural) I think are the best in Perth.
#83
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Perth
Posts: 3,453
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
Bottom line: take some responsibility for your kids and spend half an hour a night with them on the basics whether or not the school gives homework and they'll probably do fine. Leave it to the school at your own risk. I'd be very careful about sending them to a state school in a dodgy suburb - if the ones in the good suburbs are bad on basics in the early years the dodgier ones may be atrocious.
#84
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Perth
Posts: 3,453
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
As you said this has been your experience wherever you are but mine has been the opposite. I think the teaching of reading and maths is excellent in my experience. My daughter was reading 200 page novels after six months at school. Granted she is well ahead of average but my other daughter who is average academically was able to read fluently after her first year as were most of the other kids in her grade. I attribute this to the excellent teaching they have received. There were a few children who struggled but they were given reading recovery one-on-one with a reading recovery teacher and they soon caught up to the rest of the class. Friends of our arrived from the UK with their two kids and they both needed reading recovery to catch up to the rest of the kids in the class.
I can only speak for Victoria and not W.A. but primary schools here are generally good to excellent and if our school is any example the teachers are second to none.
I can only speak for Victoria and not W.A. but primary schools here are generally good to excellent and if our school is any example the teachers are second to none.
The problem is that there is a refusal on the part of the state governments in particular to provide parents with the explicit information which they need to make decisions about what is best for their child.
Consequently you have parents expressing hearsay as gospel that School A is good or School B is bad (because there was a murder in 1996) without any evidence to the contrary.
My own feeling is that it is a fundamental right for all parents who entrust the state with the education of their child to know how well their school is performing. In Australia you just can't get that information - no qualitative-based inspection reports, no quantitive, comparable test results, no standards based age-related infiormation which tells you where your child is at and where they should be at (in easy to understand terminology). Nothimg apart from TEE results.
How can this be acceptable in the 21st Century in one of the richest countries in the world?
#86
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
As I've said several times NKSK, I've actually tried state, private and catholic schooling for my kids in more than one suburb and state of australia - so I think my opinion on schooling is based on a little more than hearsay.
#87
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
I
My own feeling is that it is a fundamental right for all parents who entrust the state with the education of their child to know how well their school is performing. In Australia you just can't get that information - no qualitative-based inspection reports, no quantitive, comparable test results, no standards based age-related infiormation which tells you where your child is at and where they should be at (in easy to understand terminology). Nothimg apart from TEE results.
How can this be acceptable in the 21st Century in one of the richest countries in the world?
My own feeling is that it is a fundamental right for all parents who entrust the state with the education of their child to know how well their school is performing. In Australia you just can't get that information - no qualitative-based inspection reports, no quantitive, comparable test results, no standards based age-related infiormation which tells you where your child is at and where they should be at (in easy to understand terminology). Nothimg apart from TEE results.
How can this be acceptable in the 21st Century in one of the richest countries in the world?
#88
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Perth
Posts: 3,453
Re: schooling/teaching standards in Perth
This isn't about you. It's about the general situation - the WA/Australian education system and parents.