mark1963

Its amazing that the Australian Economy is flying high and there are many Australian workers who are head hunted all over the world.....

Can Australias School system be that bad...maybe the UK is far too ahead of itself, and asks too much of youger children !!

My son is 8 and he is struggling at school here in the UK....unfortunatley he gets very little support, and the school only seems to be interested in the kids that make the sats look good !!

The UK isn't that great , and we certainly don't need to use it as a bench mark for what our Children should be working towards !!

OzExpat

You'll probably find that most of the Aussies with decent education went private. This discussion seems to be mainly about public (state).

mark1963

Really ?

PoppetUK

A few people I know are now looking at private after experiencing public. This is not just expats but wait lists can be a problem. I don't think I am going to find a 100% perfect system and worry about UK secondary schools. As a mum I feel more stimulated and supported In UK. Parenting for some seems more natural. For me it is important to have my friends around me that can support me. I do feel more alive and stimulated closer to Perth. I think I'm actually wanting to be near a town / city where the standards are higher than further out but the cost of living in Perth seems higher than the cost of living in surrey. We also could afford to buy there but we couldn't in Perth.

PoppetUK

There is a figure I read somewhere that 40% of students are in private education in Oz. A few people I know just do it for secondary school. Outside of Perth about $5k per year. I can see why. A teacher I was speaking to the other day (husband a principal to) didn't seem so impressed with the academic progress of her children in good local private but felt it was better socially.

hoveactually

In my opinion the problem is that there is no Australian school system at the moment with each state having their own systems. In WA there is no defined curriculum so individual teachers are pretty much left to do their own thing. This leads to huge differences in standards between classes in the same year group within the same school let alone between different schools.

The sooner the national curriculum is introduced here the better. At least then the same content will be delivered even if the quality of the teaching still differs. In my experience the biggest issue is with the teaching of maths, where topics are repeated or left out altogether depending on the preferences of the teacher. The beginning of each school year is a lottery as you never know what the coming year will bring.

HelenTD

100% agree with hoveactually, Evelyn and PoppetUK about primary education in WA.

Having no mandatory curriculum and no accountability (unless you want to take on the system in an official complaint) means that WA education is all about what individual teachers choose to teach, how they teach, and the level they teach at. Parents are almost powerless, but the biggest victims are the kids, when the education system should be focussing on the kids, with us the parents and taxpayers, involved.

jad n rich

Agree with this. Same in QLD

3 boys educated here, each year the lottery. We would find what one learnt in eg grade 6 the another one would cover half that material

Your child would get to the next grade and I will give a specific example, grade 7 son 3 the teacher asked which kids had covered different areas of math I asked erm should they not have all covered that !! and was told nope, depends on what last years teacher got through.

Grade 2, was a complete joke, one teacher for son 3 was basically running a kindergarten programme and another next door had the kids on reading level 6 - 17 depending on their ability.

Anyone who thinks their kids will get a lot of help here is sadly mistaken, search other threads. Funding - lack of is a huge problem.

EG, middle son has dylexia, we have always been told its not that its a learning disability, we battled to get a few hours of learning in primary, about 26 lesson all up Now in grade 11 I have again put my concerns in writing to the school as he wont pass the Queensland Certificate of Education because of his spelling. Even the principal didnt know what we could do. Finally after 4 years of pushing we have been told to go for private testing, at a cost of $750 and $529 ( medicare rebate total $219 ) and his dyslexia may be recognised.

The education dept wont even look at paying for this test, let alone remedial help. Luckily we have the money, many wouldnt. If I hadnt pushed this would not even have happened he would have left school with a well above IQ but failed due to his spelling. It is the most bizzare and unfair system and it makes me angry.

lapin_windstar

I would assume that counts Catholic schools as private. Catholic Schools get about 72% of their funding from the State (at least in Victoria) compared to public schools which get 95% funding from the State. With that level of public (taxpayer) subsidy, arguably it doesn't make sense to class them as private when they're really services delivered for public benefit at public expense albeit by private contractors.

fish.01

What is the level for non catholic private schools? I think catholic schools come under two systems don't they, systemic or not. Does this change the level of funding do you know?

northernbird

You and I have had this discussion on threads before and you know I agree. I have been fortunate with my school and most of the teachers. Year 5 was tough on a Numeracy level with me forking out for Mathletics at home to get her back where she should be in year 6. Thankfully that teacher retires early next year and as lovely as she was it isn't a second too soon!!

Amazulu

I am very happy with my 7yo son's education.

No complaints whatsoever.

HelenTD

In the parent information pack given out at the beginning of the year, the teacher wrote about how children are often scared and hesitant about maths, but I don't think the problem is with the kids.

NKSK version 2

For those that are interested, Mathematics draft national curriculum is here: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu....curriculum.pdf

It will probably undergo minor refinements but nothing too drastic bearing in mind that implementation can begin from January next year. Those parents that are interested in figuring out what their child should know and understand by certain ages should find this useful. (By the way, if you find out that your child has not covered the basics, don't despair. There are many textbooks that you can get your hands on to get them up to speed.)

I really believe that Australia could well have one of the world's best systems within about 7 years. National Curriculum together with the proposed Australian Baccalaureate (if Labor get in again) and funding tied to teacher and headship quality (not to mention NAPLAN (which will now be linked directly to curriculum unlike now) and MySchool) means a huge shift in the education system.
The biggest problem that Australia will face is that it wants to assess against world's best benchmarks but I have serious concerns about the ability of many, many primary teachers who cannot master what is covered in National Curriculum maths.

HelenTD

Thanks for the link, I'll have a go and see if I can understand it, maths is not my strong point.

There's also the question of who decides what a child should know by a certain age, and another question is what a child is capable of learning, if only they were taught it.

Yes, 100% agree on teachers' ability even covering what we have now - but then in WA they don't have to follow a curriculum, so if something is too hard for the teacher to teach, they can just opt out.

Not only does the system have many teachers and principals who are not competent, but you have to question who's teaching the teachers at uni and what the courses cover. You might have to go back about 30 years to find out the prevailing education ideology at the time and how this has trickled down into the system.

Before anyone gets too agitated, I do realise that there are competent teachers out there, it's just that in my experience, I haven't met any.