Flake Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Hi all, Does anyone know where to look to find out the school performance assessment grade or equivalent in Sydney NSW? thanks for your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicF Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 There is no equivalent to Ofstead. Aussies don't go in for league tables either. The obsession with results seems to be a bit of a British thing - I once made a comment about the high school my son is now going to getting good academic results and was told that the whole school experience is more important than the results a school achieves. And this was by someone heavily involved in University admissions. Anyways, that's probably no he to someone coming from the UK who has learnt that we have to judge schools on the academic results of the kids (and I count myself as one of those people). One of the first places to start is myschool.edu.au. This has all the Naplan (Aussie equivalent to sats) for all the schools in the country as far as I can tell. It also has comparisons of how well the school did compared with schools in similar socio economic areas and lots of other information about the make up of the school and the finances of the school. There are other sites that do rank schools according to Naplan results but these are not official and take their information from the results published on the myschool website. These can be handy but be wary of any that lump all three of the primary years Naplan results together in one ranking - this hides schools where the school slides down the rankings from year three to year seven (schools to avoid IMO) and schools that go up the rankings between years 3 and 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 You don't! You aren't allowed to rank schools in Aus, the education unions have fought hard to prevent any comparison tables and the best (if you can call it that) is the http://www.myschool.edu.au website. Take it with a pinch of salt and go and do the eyeball test when you arrive to see if a school is likely to meet your child's needs. Australia doesn't like tall poppies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Roberto Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 I spent ages trying to work this out. It's quite complex. Depends what type of school you need. In our case, with 3 kids we couldn't afford private schools (we didn't really want our kids in private education either, it's just not our thing) In general terms there are pretty good primary schools everywhere. (Government schools). High schools seem to be a bit hit and miss from what we could tell. You can search all these on the government/state website, cross referencing postcodes and addresses. Then the above mentioned myschool.edu thing can show a simple social-mix and pass/fail rate. It's a bit crude, but it gives you some idea. There is quite a lot of variation. Sorry I don't have the correct links to hand as I am on my phone typing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Roberto Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Obviously if you have the luxury of moving house until you get the right place, that would work too. But if you need to try and work it out from here, that's the best I could do. If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know! In addition to looking on my school.edu you can poke about on Google, and befriend PIO people who might have kids in that school. It might be a case of being friendly/politely nosey to get more information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maruska Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 some more info on www.bettereducation.com.au. This one might be quite subjective IMO. We narrowed down 5 schools by the NAPLAN results before we came, than took a tour and got the feeling about the school. We ended up in a school that wasn`t on our list. It just felt right. You can only do that after you move but there is no rush. My son started about 6 weeks after arrival - we came just before the school holidays in July. If it took you 2 months to find the right place, nobody will chase your children to go to school, especially because you have to secure a rental in the school`s catchment area and that might take some time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flake Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 Thanks so much, crikey so much to think about and investigate! Thanks all for your info! X Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tina2 Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 I assume you will be in short term accomadation to start ? Once you have employment sorted get in the car and go for a drive around 3pm in the areas you would like to live. Have a look at the kids coming out of school and how they behave that will give you some indication of what the school is like as far as disaplin is concerned. Go sit in a local cafe and ask who ever serves you what the school is like. You will be amazed at the info that comes out from locals. There is no rush to enroll your child and you need to be sure you are happy with a school in the catchment you choose to live in. Another bit of info, there are growing numbers of Government/Private schools. To be honest I am not quite sure how it works but here is a link that explains it http://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/Infrastructure-Delivery/Public-private-partnerships/Projects/New-Schools-PPP It is still a "state" school and no fees apply, well maybe a fee for an excursion somewhere but they tend to be very good schools and are opening as far as I know in Vic, NSW and Qld sorry not sure about other states. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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