I'm hoping to move to the Brisbane area in aug/Sept 03 and have three children aged 10,12 & 14. I'm finding it difficult to understand the education system.
Instead of GCSE's and A levels I understand that OP ratings are used, but don't know what these are.
Do children get them when they leave school?
Do you take exams to get them? If so do the children specialise in certain subjects and get one per subject or is it an overall rating?
Does the school you go to affect your OP rating?

Because I have the 3 children I have many unanswered questions on schools and the education system and any help would be great.
Thanks
Wendy

OP ratings are awarded to individual children, not the school. Not sure how many subjects count towards the eventual OP. However, having said that, the highest OP rates do always seem to come from the Private Schools.

Try www.edu.qld.au or something similar and ask a few questions.

thx for the reply. I tried the web site u gave, but it doesnt work. Any suggestions for other sites that may be useful?Wendy

As I understand it, the students do not take any formal exams such as GCSEs and A levels. In the final two years, which are 11 and 12, all coursework is assessed. I'm not sure how many subjects they do. The student gets an overall grade based on his/her coursework over the 2 years (and exceptionally bad (or good?) results can be discarded - if there is a good reason to do so (illness, etc)
Then at the end of year 12 there are 2(?) days of a kind of general knowledge/skills testing exam, which also gets a grade.
The results of the assessed subjcects plus the result of the general test are sent to Brisbane and an overall OP score is calculated, between 1 and 15 (I think), with 1 the highest. This overall OP score is then used for university, CV's etc.
Hope this helps, my son will be going into year 8 so OP stuff is a bit far away, but I think this is the way it works overall.
Have you tried searching on Google for education/schools Queensland? I may have some links at home and if I do I will post them later.
Cheers
Caryn

weve also been wondering about schooling, mine are aged 11,13,15 and 17. the two eldest are meant to take exams in june!!! because weve now got visas, the kids want to up and go, but i think its probably best they sit their exams, but will their results mean anything in oz, ?? or would it be worth just going to oz and hope they can carry on with their schooling, without exam results. any advice anyone.:scared:

thx caryn
i've tried searching for qld/education/schools etc- problems seem to be they assume i know the basics already and dont answer the questions i have. These mainly being about the differences between british and australian education. Any sites you can direct me to would be of great help.
General knowledge test ! I presume my childrens General knowledge will be far different to australian children. Any idea if they will take this into account?
Do you know anything about 'core' subjects? Ive heard that QLD has agriculture as one- is this true? My children have never studied it and if it is a core subject will they be far behind and at a disadvantage?

Hi Andi
My 14 year old is taking 5 GCSE's a year early so that she has something to show for her time here. Also if things go disasterously wrong and we come back she should be OK for university. We intend to go in Aug.

Wendy

Talking about "core subjects", did you know that Indonesian is taught as a second language here in most schools, with possibly Italian as an alternative. Our two were starting to learn French in the UK, so this would be a big change... (Personally, can`t for the life of me see the need for Indonesian, but there you are)