Education - Northern or Southern Hemisphere??

[shaunkaren]

HI Karen,

 

what is extension learning first time ive heard of it ?

 

thanks dizz..

 

Basically when a teacher picks them up as being good at something then they are given work appropriate to their level, my son is quite good at maths and will be given work to keep challenging him.

[Guest chris955]

But do you speak English ? :biggrin:

 

I don't speck English??:wacko::biglaugh:

[Salma]

see i have always heard schools in Aus are not as good as uk ones so was of the mind will get kids thru primary state and then go private (not that I even have kids yet!)

 

but then i read the the same link karen sent and thought hang on a minute everyone is deriding Aus education but it seems better than the UK.

[Guest chris955]

Whether a school is good or not comes down to the way it is run not what country it is in.

[lavender776]

I'm sure I'm going to get slated, but this is only my opinion (based on what I see coming through my UK college door year after year). I would say that probably around 80% of students who come to the college where I work are not equipped for either further study or the 'real world'. Granted, we are in a low socio-economic area, but the lack of literacy and numeracy skills still contantly amazes me. I think I have reached that age where I am starting to say 'education has changed from when I was at school, about 22 years ago. However, even students who are studying A level equivalent courses do not have more than a basic grasp of things like punctuation. I also have one student who got a Grade C in his English GCSE at school (although he did have to complete it separately to mainstream students due to behaviour issues) and he has no concept of where a full stop or capital letter should go.

 

Perhaps more worrying is the lack of ability to handle themselves in wider society (although none of them would realise this as they all think they're very streetwise.) Like posters have said above, I feel these 'soft' skills are as important as academic skills.

 

This makes me sound very negative towards my students, but that's not the case. It's the system that has failed, not the students. Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that in FE we are doing anything to redress that failure as the only focus is on targets and statistics and it is very rare that someone fails. This is ok to a certain extent, as we have to justify public spending, but not with the cost of a reduction in quality. Sooner or later, industry and wider society will perhaps realise that we are not doing a very good job for preparing our kids for the world of work.

 

It's very frustrating (I'm not yet cynical enough to not care about this - and I hope I never get that way (I see it all the time). I would like to think that this would be different in Australia, but realistically know that everything revolves around targets.

[Guest siamsusie]

see i have always heard schools in Aus are not as good as uk ones so was of the mind will get kids thru primary state and then go private (not that I even have kids yet!)

 

but then i read the the same link karen sent and thought hang on a minute everyone is deriding Aus education but it seems better than the UK.

It is quite scary Salma, my husband has turned out a Dr. and a chemical engineer in the ozzie system, they just must have both had pommie teachers....:biglaugh: I must talk to Julia Gillard in the morning Education Minister and Deputy PM)

[Salma]

It is quite scary Salma, my husband has turned out a Dr. and a chemical engineer in the ozzie system, they just must have both had pommie teachers....:biglaugh: I must talk to Julia Gillard in the morning Education Minister and Deputy PM)

 

I know it's crazy!

because Aus is full of sportsmen (did annoy my father in law by saying how many nobel prize winners you have and he sent me a link but the really funny thing was they won it with brits didnt highlight that to him)

[Guest SO,DIZZY]

You were lucky with your daughter's school in Scotland.

I have a friend whose son is dyslexic at high school. He receives no help whatsoever because my friend takes him to the Dyslexia Association's Saturday morning classes. The school won't even provide a 'reader' for his exams, they say his needs are catered for because he attends the DA lessons. It's all about funding, and depends on the area.

I know another boy who went to a private school, which took ages to finally test for dyslexia, they just thought he was badly behaved, and when it was confirmed, the school said there was nothing they could do for him!! So after about 3 wasted, expensive years, he's now in a state junior school that has a lot of special needs funding.

 

Sometimes a private tutor is the best thing to do for your child, or checking out a different school which will cater for her. Maybe see if there is a Dyslexia Association or some sort of group, because they will have info on teachers and schools etc.

 

 

Yes it is a bit of a lotery but Scotland does have a good network support base in most areas and incliusion is high up on the agenda in some authorities but unfortunatly down on others.

we did have to push the school to have her tested properly (its the only way you can be sure they are duty bound to give the necesary support) they were dragging there heels a bit but the support was out there to be accessed , Im not 100 percent sure but im getting the impresion that there is not the same resource in Melbourne schools..

Ive taken on board your advice about the dislexic association and will see if there is one in my area we have also thought about tutoring as well but i think she needs one on one with someone who works with dislexic children... so thanks for that idea..

[Guest Skippyplus6]

My daughter is dislexic she also has short term memory problems which mean she cannot store certaian types of information.. which basicaly means she has a great deal of difficulty learning to read and write although she writes very neatly and has a great imagination she cant put all her thoughts on paper as it gets all jumbled up, but she gives plenty of input to her work regardless , never the less she is unable to work independently on certain tasks and has to copy a lot of the time ,

In the uk she had an IEP and was making fantastic progress with reading and writing ,but she has fallen way behind since she has been in school here , the teacher here in Australia is very enthusiastic and tries to adapt the sylabus but as she is relatively new to teaching and has not had to deal with a dislexic child in her class before she is flying by the seat of her pants so to speak , i have found there is very little being done to support the teacher , there is not a network of support like in the uk , ie learning support educational scicologists , in the uk she had an individual educational program designerd to specificaly target her strengths and weekneses , a phonics programe designed to help with sounds and blending , I brought lots of paperwork from the uk all the tests she has had regarding her learning difficulties and examples of her work and support programme also an indepth report on how she was being supported , I had thought that there would be a system of support here in Australia to equal that of the uk but that just isnt the case , its a suck it and see policy they have here with most of the responsibility falling on the class teacher who is basically giving her less work and easier work than the rest of the class , she is falling way behind my daughter is now saying she is not getting the level of support she feels she needs , now we knew it was a risk taking her out of her school in the uk were she was doing so well to come here but we did start our immigration journey when she was only 5 so our plans were already in place before it had been recognised her dislexia was quite profound , although my daughter enjoys school here she is aware that her education is suffering and it could be reason enough for a return to the uk for a year or two in the near future before she is so behind she will not catch up.. I think that if a normal level of support is needed in the classroom then Australian schools are fine but for kids with mabey more complexed needs they dont have the same level of support as the UK...

 

 

Where abouts are you in Oz please?

[Guest Skippyplus6]

Sorry, just read the post that says you're in Melbourne. For anybody in Brisbane, there's Queenland Centre for Learning & Behaviour Disorders and they are very good and have educational pschyologists, etc and they do all the testing etc.

[Guest Seabird50]

Hopefully this will be of help to people.

 

I have had no experience of junior schools so can't comment there.

 

Senior Schooling:

If you compare two Schools in the UK or in Australia they will vary enormously. Trying to compare your School in the UK to your School here is not a fair comparison as you may have found exactly the same issues for good or bad if you'd moved to a different part of the same country, or even a different school in your own town.

 

The Schools in Oz offer way more variety in education. You can go back to School at any time in your life. You can be accelerated, or allowed more time - if you are not out of School at 17 nobody cares. We have specialist schools for music, sports etc. If you have to look after a sick parent you actually get GCSE equivalents for that work, so that you do not fail School - it recognises skills that go beyond the classroom. If you excel in something outside the classroom you can get points for that too.

 

My daughter had special needs, most specifically timeout when she felt panicky in crowds. The School in the UK she went to was extraordinarily good at this and had facilities for kids like that. I don't know of any other Schools in the UK that offered this, but I never asked them. None of the senior Schools I have spoken to here are that advanced, however they used to let her go the the medical room. This, of course, exacerbated the problem because she felt that she was somehow more dysfunctional than when she went to an education area where other kids also went with similar, or different, special needs.

This meant that she stopped attending School after months of trying. In hindsight this was partly my fault as she had two offers from Music specialist schools, and the other was less crowded. Instead, in year 10 she studied graphic design at TAFE before heading in Year 11 to the Australian Science and Mathematics School. This is a phenomenal School with unique teaching methods and environment that suited her down to the ground. She didn't need any help at TAFE or the School - the School was the right one so there was no need to panic.

 

In the end she decided to stick with Music, and is now studying a pre-degree course at Uni. What amazed me was that she got recognition for her work at TAFE that added to her final score for entry to Uni. If we had been in the UK she would have had no option other than to be working. She has had wonderful opportunities here in and out of School that would not have happened in the UK because it is simply too big to get to the right people, and has sung at some wonderful venues in front of large audiences as a direct result. This has all been part of her education and turned her life round - education happens outside School too.

 

I worked in a University for 4 years. For clarity:

 

The marking is substantially more lenient here - the same piece of work will be awarded around an additional 10% - 20% on the score board. You then have to get higher marks to achieve the grades. In the UK 70% gives you a first, here you have to get 90%.

 

In terms of standard, a first class degree here = somewhere between an upper second and first in the UK More people come out with firsts. That said there are not that many students that get a first that wouldn't get one in the UK

 

You are given 4 years to get through your degree, and can chose to exit after 3 if you are prepared to sacrifice honours.

 

You are also given 4 years for ah PhD which makes the whole thing far more achievable than the UK where after 3 years you have to get a fulltime job and write your thesis at the same time.

 

The standards between the Universities varies as much as it does in the UK. We have the "Group of eight" Universities here that get most of the research funding. Research funding is in shorter supply here than in Europe and there are far fewer Universities per capita to choose from. Most people here do not do postdoctoral study in Australia due to lack of Research opportunities for them. Universities here employ heaps of PhD students instead because they are cheaper - there isn't a postdoc culture. I am therefore working in private industry now!! Most postdocs head to Europe or Canada for a few years, then return home and take up lectureships.

 

All the best

 

Seabird

[Guest JulieW]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is that in the UK most students leave home to go to university whereas here they mostly stay at home and commute to university. I feel this is a big difference between the two countries which turns university into a completely different experience. In the UK, you gain a lot from university beyond just academic qualifications because you also experience real independence and freedom from your parents. I find it very surprising that more 18 year olds here don't want to move to a different city for university and experience life away from home. This also has an impact on society in that it means fewer tertiary educated people move away from their home city for work so school friendships here seem to endure in a way they don't in the UK. As an immigrant, this has made it harder for me to fit in as all the Aussies I meet seem to be part of friendship groups they have had since school. In the UK, it is more common to meet people who are also from different towns and cities and so there's more feeling of 'being ín the same boat'. That's my experience anyway. How do others feel about the going away to university situation here versus the UK?

[Guest]

I don't know the facts but I suspect there is a trend towards students living at home in the UK too. The abolishion of grants being one factor and social changes the other. I was not allowed to share a room at my parents house with my OH until we were married which was a very good reason to live away from home

 

I do think university is a great transition to independence & students who stay at home miss out but of course in Australia the nearest city is often a flight away so even coming home for vacations is an expensive proposition. I met a woman on a plane from Melbourne to Perth who had been seeing her daughter off, I know my ticket was around $700 return, a bit more significant than the National Express fare I used to pay!

[ali]

As a parent now, I know that I will be considering cost when my daughter is ready for Uni although if she chooses to study interstate then so be it. Purely as her mum, i'm hoping she'll pick the Uni that's in the next suburb to us lol

[Mongrel]

My daughter is grown up ,sorry can that, 20 years old and in theuk , what i can gather ,here in oz littlies learn how to be people first ,social skills , play ,while it looks nowt ,they are learnin and interactin , the uk are too much up the sats and league tables , which mostly are fiddled anyway , crammin a littlies brain with too much academic stuff too early will put a lot back ,i can remember eons ago as a kid ,if i didnt like something then if forced to do it put me off ,( washing up an example lol) . You can say this school is better than that school but is it not down to the child and their capacity for learning, here in oz if they are not into academic stuff they can persue other things,i`m not talkin about basic knowledge ( R, W and A) but crammin english lit and history down someone who is not interested is not going to work

[Guest]

I was told thteakt's not teaching children to read at 4/5 that's harmful, it's what they are missing out on whilst they are learning that does the damage. It made me think although my son goes to a school where they do teach them to read at 5 alongside many wonderful creative and exploratory activities.

 

If I'd known his school existed I would have moved to Australia for that alone & we came from Scotland where IMHO the education system is better than England.

[byrned]

This sounds like kids in england are tied to a table from four and before moving from that table must be able to read and write, there again we can only post on our own individual experiences, my daughter was reading before she got to school, at school learned her numbers and letters, she had a love of learning, but she also had a love of playing, are people saying that children in England are crammed full of knowlege but not developing social skills, just to acheive the stats, I think you do a great disservice to the thousands of teachers, my kids were tested as previously put, at no time did they know they were being tested because the teachers were that good at what they did it was just a another sheet of work they had to do which they did every day anyway. Look at your kids, are they quivering social wrecks, I showed my daughter this post she lives away at Uni and down for a few days, she started laughing her response was "Jeez you parents really need to get a life"

[ali]

I guess it depends on each parents experience of the school system. It's great that your daughter is so well adjusted. Here in Aus my youngest is thriving because he's allowed to be himself, he's valued by his teachers and peers and works hard. At his very first parent teacher consultation in reception (in the UK) I was informed that his behaviour left a lot to be desired, he'd been attending a nursery and never had any problems so I was horrified at what he might be doing ...... his crime apparently was that he had chatted on the carpet. His whole first year he used to ask if he could stay at home. Luckily the next year he got a wonderful teacher who had previously taught my daughter and she had nothing but praise and he began to like school, but here he's thrived and loves it, he's first dressed and ready. I realise that my bad experience was more down to the particular teacher than the whole school system, but there is a more relaxed atmosphere here than in the UK. My OH was amazed that they didn't have to line up to go in the classroom which had been our experience of our childrens school in the UK.

[Guest chris955]

We have had 3 friends (parent's from our kids school) move their kids to different schools this year, one because the teaching was too relaxed for them, one because a known bully of one of their daughters was actually put into her class after making a specific request for it not to happen and one because they felt their kids weren't reaching their potential. No system seems better than the other and appears to be down to the individual school or teacher or indeed student, although I am waiting for someone to claim their kids are doing better because they get to have more BBQ's at home :laugh:

[ali]

We have had 3 friends (parent's from our kids school) move their kids to different schools this year, one because the teaching was too relaxed for them, one because a known bully of one of their daughters was actually put into her class after making a specific request for it not to happen and one because they felt their kids weren't reaching their potential. No system seems better than the other and appears to be down to the individual school or teacher or indeed student, although I am waiting for someone to claim their kids are doing better because they get to have more BBQ's at home :laugh:

 

Lol ... now you come to mention it Chris. I agree that it's all individualistic, apart from that one teacher in my sons first year it was a great school (my daugher had already been there 5 years when my son started. At the end of the day, i'm sure most parents would agree that they want their kids to achieve their potential but most of all be happy ...... it makes life much easier when they are

[TraceyT]

My daughter started school in England far too young, she turned 4 in the July & the same Sept, she started full time education. She had a 2 hour sleep every afternoon, propped up with pillows in the quiet area with the kids being taught around her. She was later diagnosed as having dyslexia and is now doing rather well in her GCSE's (fingers crossed). This is down to her hard work and graft, she needed to prove to her peers that she isn't thick. We land in Adelaide in June and she goes back to year 10!!! After reading all your comments, I do feel relieved by some of the comments made about the Oz education system. Can I also add to the parents of other young dyslexic children that I have spent literally thousands on extra lessons & none have made the slightest difference to her spelling and punctuation. It is me that has had to chill and accept her requirements as a parent & stop presurising her.

[Guest Seabird50]

I don't know the facts but I suspect there is a trend towards students living at home in the UK too. The abolishion of grants being one factor and social changes the other. I was not allowed to share a room at my parents house with my OH until we were married which was a very good reason to live away from home

 

I do think university is a great transition to independence & students who stay at home miss out but of course in Australia the nearest city is often a flight away so even coming home for vacations is an expensive proposition. I met a woman on a plane from Melbourne to Perth who had been seeing her daughter off, I know my ticket was around $700 return, a bit more significant than the National Express fare I used to pay!

 

This is true for Undergraduates. The reason more students stay at home in the UK is down to the cost of housing. This is different to Australia where most people believe that where they live is the only place in the world worth living, eg. many South Aussies won't ever move out of Adelaide, but stay where they are familiar with their School mates, family etc.

 

Postgraduate taught degrees and Masters are totally dominated by overseas students, usually Indian Asian in the UK and Indian and Oriental Asian in Oz.

Asian countries value education more than Westerners and are happy to pay the price ticket - most UK and Ozzie students would rather get out to work if they are not doing a PhD.

[Guest Seabird50]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is that in the UK most students leave home to go to university whereas here they mostly stay at home and commute to university. I feel this is a big difference between the two countries which turns university into a completely different experience. In the UK, you gain a lot from university beyond just academic qualifications because you also experience real independence and freedom from your parents. I find it very surprising that more 18 year olds here don't want to move to a different city for university and experience life away from home. This also has an impact on society in that it means fewer tertiary educated people move away from their home city for work so school friendships here seem to endure in a way they don't in the UK. As an immigrant, this has made it harder for me to fit in as all the Aussies I meet seem to be part of friendship groups they have had since school. In the UK, it is more common to meet people who are also from different towns and cities and so there's more feeling of 'being ín the same boat'. That's my experience anyway. How do others feel about the going away to university situation here versus the UK?

 

This is certainly true of Adelaide. Part of the decision making process when taking employees is what School you went to. It is one of the first questions Aussies ask each other when they meet. This can make it harder for overseas candidates seeking work. I am the only non-Aussie in my section at work, and that took four interviews and a psyche test before they would employ me. Seems quite normal for the firm I work for, but I expected there to be a higher number of non-Australians around the place given it is a firm of Engineers. This would be very different in Sydney or Melbourne, where there are far higher numbers of visible minorities. Alot can depend on where you live. That said, after 4 years in Adelaide I am pretty well integrated and have heaps of friends Aussie and non-Aussie. I also have heaps of British friends here that have spent decades here, through the folk scene.

 

I also agree that there is a great divide between States. Companies in Adelaide constantly complain about the Eastern seaboard having the lion's share of all the markets, whilst people on the Eastern seaboard consider Adelaide a back-water. So much depends on where you live........