Originally Posted by DARREN AND NYREEN (Post 6953055)

hi

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

thanks
darren, nyreen and family

Originally Posted by hoveactually (Post 6961646)

Which just illustrates what happens when there is no formal curriculum.

Originally Posted by Gibbo (Post 6961579)

Statistics have nothing to do with the quality of education.

Originally Posted by northernbird (Post 6961666)

absolutely. I am pleased with our primary but I am not looking forward to high school because at this moment in time I don't know where she will be going.

Originally Posted by northernbird (Post 6961644)

My daughter is in Year 5 and they have been doing joined up writing at her school since year 3 and they have done all their tables up to 12.

Originally Posted by NKSK version 2 (Post 6961673)

...and they do, not least, because of your last statement about the quality of teachers.


For too long poor teachers have hidden their own performance behind a multitude of child issues - problems at home, poor parents, older sibling dominance, low self-esteem, dyslexia.

Of course these issues are extremely important and of course they all affect child attainment and of course no two children are alike.

But if you can start from a point which says "1000 children who scored the same aptitude as your daughter at aged 7 went on to produce a Year 12 average result of 95% (and the highest was 97% and the lowest 80%)" then you have a starting point for discussion about all of the above issues. You can create dialogue.

"My child isn't achieving quite as well as is suggested from the data - let's think about what the cause could be...self-esteem, bullying?, laziness, family problems......crap teacher?????"

Of course gleaning statistics and sitting back and watching won't help but as part of informing and diagnosing and helping the individual child...it's invaluable.

WA teachers continually block attempts for greater transparency and use of objective data.

Originally Posted by NKSK version 2 (Post 6961693)

What I find so frustrating is that some people have great experiences of Australian education and others have dire experiences.
And we're not talking about severely disadvantaged communities compared with City Beach here - we're talking differences in classes in the same school in a wealthy suburb...

Surely such a state of affirs has to be addressed?

Originally Posted by Gibbo (Post 6961697)

Still can't agree with you. Statistics can be manipulated and therefore can be deemed to be flawed, especially when applied to people. We are never going to agree on this so why don't we just leave it at that. Must admit that we could have a very lively discussion on the subject but not really appropriate for a website.

Originally Posted by NKSK version 2 (Post 6961687)

You never know, a few parents have started to turn down places because of the economic situation, this might ease the queues - I heard today that one low fee private school is seriously worried about enrollments.

Originally Posted by Gibbo (Post 6961699)

Same could be said for any country.

Originally Posted by NKSK version 2 (Post 6961703)

Hey I thought you were leaving it - I gave you a smiley as well! :(

Originally Posted by scooby3 (Post 6961458)

As a univerity educated adult from the UK who went to a primary school with no testing to see how i was doing against the rest of my class i quite like the australian system which develops the whole and allows kids to be kids.
I dont know what you are all concerned about!!!

Originally Posted by Gibbo (Post 6961579)

Statistics have nothing to do with the quality of education.

Originally Posted by hoveactually (Post 6961646)

Which just illustrates what happens when there is no formal curriculum.

Originally Posted by hoveactually (Post 6961494)

I dont know what you are all concerned about!!!

Spoken by someone who does not have children at school in Australia?