hi

does anyone know the difference between the UK and the Australian education system.

thanks
darren, nyreen and family

There isnt actually an Australian education system - there are individual states education systems and they are all different and all very different again from the UK system. There is a thumbnail description here which might get you started. BTW no GCSEs nor A levels

Education in Australia is administered by the State Governments, NOT by the Federal Government.
Each of the Australian States set their own school terms and holiday dates, and they are often at slightly different times in the different States. An example of this is the 2008/2009 Summer Holiday starts on Dec 13 in QLD, SA & NT, Dec 19 in Tasmania & WA, and Dec 20 in ACT, NSW & VIC.

Even different styles of Handwriting are learnt in the different States in Junior School


UK - Australia comparisons, from the PISA 2006 Results
About 33% of Australian Children are educated in the Private school system.

In QLD we have OP's as end of school exam results. Other States have different names.

A comparison that I found for different countries from the Griffith University is:
AUS: Sound achievement in three academic subjects in Year 12 including English
UK: GCE 'A' Levels with D average


Australian Education

Don't take these figures as meaning that your child will be educated well in Australia.

Question marks have been raised over PISA and how advocates of the Australian system jump on these figures for justification that all is well (not meaning you ABC - I know you always try to be obective).

As with any country, whether your child is educated well depends much more on the individual school than the education system.

The VIC system is such that in terms of knowledge students are behind in their knowledge, though not necessarily in their thinking skills which are ultimately more important IMO

Agreed completely!

I'm not sure what my daughters school does, but a strange thing happened earlier on...

My daughter is on a sleepover with a school friend this weekend.
I got a phone call a short time ago, from her, asking if could I take her English and Science books to her friends house, as they are doing some homework together!

When she began to ask me to bring something, I began to think "Mobile Phone", "MP4 player" etc, things I knew she hadn't taken, but no, they are doing homework !!!

I'm stil in shock...

I partly agree but from my experience and from talking with senior maths teachers, mathematical knowledge is a big issue in WA. 'Thinking mathematically' is all well and good but if kids have not been taught the fundamentals of long division, simplifying fractions, area of a circle etc etc, then they are essentially stuffed.

In WA the system is so slack that you may get a teacher who is a decent mathematician and may have an interest in the subject and will teach a whole range of mathematical concepts, meanwhile a parallel teacher may do nothing.

And without a recognised core body of mathematical knowledge (a syllabus to you and me) there is no way that you can hold the teacher accountable (and this is true for private as well as state schools).

Primary education in Australia (in WA at least) is good for character building but completely hit-and-miss as far as providing the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy.

If you are a parent who is pretty much hands-off and/or has little mathematical knowledge and who (perhaps rightly) trusts the school to get it right, I would go so far as to say that you are taking a big risk in educating your kids in WA - state or private (but particularly state). One day, you may well turn around and say "Jesus my child doesn't even know the basics of mathematics" - by which time it will be too late.

This just shows the difference between states though is your experience based on your own kids school or WA schools in general?

My 7 year old daughter is learning fractions, space and value, subtraction, multiplication and division. My older daughter who is in grade 5 has also done long division, short division, long multiplication, decimals etc. for quite a while now. They learnt all their times tables in grade 3/4. So besides thinking mathamatically they are leraning the basics of mathematics also. They go to a Catholic school but I think all the state schools and private in our area do the same type of curriculum in Victoria.

The recent NAPLAN results for NUMERACY were:
Year 7
VIC scored 552.3 compared to WA 534.0
with 544.9 being the Australian Average.

In year 9
VIC scored 590.7 compared to WA 571.7
with 582.2 being the Australian Average

WA, on average, does not compare too well against Victoria.

However, individual schools can be very different.

eg: Year 7 - NUMERACY
Victoria 552.3 (quite high)
Queensland 538.9 (quite low)
Australian Average 544.9
Yet my school, in QLD, scored 557.0 beating Victoria

Statistical averages...

As a parent of state school kids and as a teacher in an ''elite" private school.

WA is probably particularly bad BUT as I've said before on here, from reading the opinions of others in different states it becomes apparent that the hit and miss nature of schooling throughout Australia suggests that there are systemic problems with education.

At least in the UK there is a national syllabus so it is easy to know what your child should understand by, say, aged 9. There is effective comparability between schools and states (information on individual schools is accessible). In Australia, states obfuscate "WA kids are younger than their intersate counterparts/we don't teach that until Y8" to avoid direct comparisons.

And the spotlight is (and has been for many years) always turned on to academic progress. It's a sensitive area.
Ever tried getting a school to hold a teacher accountable in Australia?

I agree. My year 5 daughter has had 2 consecutive years of teaching by a teacher with a Literacy bias. Her mathematics skills are average at best. We (that is the Royal WE as my maths skills are shocking!) have taken it upon ourselves to give her extra help at home with her maths. My kids are better children for their education here but I do have concerns at the lack of decent syllabus and lack of individual teacher accountability.

Anecdotally, it seems that there are more teachers who are happy with literacy compared with numeracy. (Having said that I'm still not convinced that literacy is being taught effectively either. OK they get apostrophes right and verbs, nouns and adjectives but beyond that....?)

This is a weakness in our household - my theoretical grammar is appalling.

In 6 years I haven't yet met anyone with their children in state secondary school. I had planned to send mine privately which I wouldn't have ever considered in the UK. With the unexpected third child in 3 years though I am seriously considering that I will not be able to afford to put them through privately.

This worries me, just because noone I meet seems to go state. Why is that? I am not so worried about the younger grades its secondary where it seems to come into play.

I live in Buderim, QLD. I am considering Mountain Creek as their secondary school which has a good reputation I think although I will have to move

Private schooling for 3 will cost $45,000 per year plus uniform and books etc. Thats for 5 years I think? I would like to send them to state if it isn't that bad and then get them through uni without hex.

Anyone else in the same position?

Have you considered Catholic Education. Much more cost effective if you have three of more kids.

You don't have to send your kids to a $15K a year school to get them into private - there are some at $3K.

In terms of academic results there are some schools in WA which charge $15K a year and get worse results than some state schools.

There are many schools at $3K who get pretty poor results. My own kids will go to a fairly high performing state school (if we are still in the country) but this will necessitate a house move to get into the catchment. We can't afford the highest fee schools and I'm wary about those mid to low fee schools.