Better education - UK or Australia?

[pinkk8]

Here's an interesting article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7115692.stm the league tables on the link show the Australia as being above average and the Uk below average.

Although these tables are from 2007 I have read that the uk has since slipped even further down both tables.

What was it Tony Blair said back in 1997 "education,education,education" :laugh: and dispite throwing billions at it, the standards got worse and worse:sad:

Clearly money can't replace or cover up inadequacy:no:

 

Actually it is Australia that is having a massive slide in its education ratings - particularly in top end students. There is a big push on to try and halt this and it is a driver behind ACARA. Lots of funding has been put it to bring some of the best educational researchers to Australia (the team has been built at Melbourne Uni).

[Toolbox]

Actually it is Australia that is having a massive slide in its education ratings - particularly in top end students. There is a big push on to try and halt this and it is a driver behind ACARA. Lots of funding has been put it to bring some of the best educational researchers to Australia (the team has been built at Melbourne Uni).

 

 

 

That might be the case...but is'nt it great to see they are doing something about it...and not just throwing billions of tax payers money at the problem.

Meanwhile the Uk education ratings continue to slide and now there is no money left to throw at it...so back to basics I think.

[Taz2008]

Hi

We are coming to Oz in January and my youngest has just turned 7 but has never attended an english school as we live in France.My worry is will she be picked on as her reading and writing in english is very basic.We have 2 older girls and they read and write fine with the exception of a few spellings.

Can anyone tell me at what age in Oz do they start to read and write.

Will she really stand out,we are reading loads with her but they are still in the French system and it is very demanding.That's one of our reasons for moving to Australia.Our girls start school at 8.30 and finish at 5.30 (there is no school Wednesdays)they have homework every evening.

julie:hug:

 

Hey Julie

 

I worry about the same thing as my two girls, just turned 7 and 9, are in the same situation as your little one, but my feelings are that they will soon catch up... if need be I am sure the school would provide extra help to get them to catch up with the others.

 

I just think that, as Australia is full of immigrants, they must be geared up for dealing with all sorts of nationalities and different levels for each new child that arrives at their school. Kids adapt quickly and I know from experience that helping my kiddies with their French homework and grammar drives me nuts. It must be so much easier for us to help them when its all going to be in English!!! So try not to worry too much.

 

Tasha x

[Fyrish]

We are a bit concerned about our older children, currently 16 & 12 (birthdays in August), if we go to Perth late next year they will be going "backwards" and not sure how they will cope with this. I know they have to get used to the education system but they see it as they are going to be a year and a half behind where they are now. The little one is only 15mths so would start school at 6.5yrs and won't know anything else. Very difficult to know what to do.....

[ali]

We are a bit concerned about our older children, currently 16 & 12 (birthdays in August), if we go to Perth late next year they will be going "backwards" and not sure how they will cope with this. I know they have to get used to the education system but they see it as they are going to be a year and a half behind where they are now. The little one is only 15mths so would start school at 6.5yrs and won't know anything else. Very difficult to know what to do.....

 

My daughter had left primary and started high school in the UK, but here Year 7 was the last year of Primary - she didn't think of it as going backwards just "how it was". Children here do leave school later.... all my sons friends started HS in September whilst he'll be in his last year of Primary next year and my daughters friends are all now in college ... she has year 12 next year.

 

I think it's best not to think of going backwards because that makes it sound like a bad thing when really it's just fitting into the system. Your 16 year old may find it the most difficult and may need to look at TAFE, my daughter is 16 and as I said just completing year 11 (years 11 and 12 form a 2 year course and you have to complete so many units in order to get your WACE certificate).

 

http://www.curriculum.wa.edu.au/internet/Senior_Secondary/The_WACE

[LKC]

We are a bit concerned about our older children, currently 16 & 12 (birthdays in August), if we go to Perth late next year they will be going "backwards" and not sure how they will cope with this. I know they have to get used to the education system but they see it as they are going to be a year and a half behind where they are now. The little one is only 15mths so would start school at 6.5yrs and won't know anything else. Very difficult to know what to do.....

 

I wouldn't make an issue of them going 'backwards' to be honest. Just explain to them that they are going to a new school in a new education system, and that they are going to have the opportunity to make new friends whist the workload will be light enough for them to get to know how things work (if that makes sense).

[Johndoe]

I do think it is a bit of an indictment though that close to half the parental population choose to put their hands in their pockets to pay for an education when there is a freebie on offer across the street (and many have tried the free option first!).

 

Personally, I don't think it's an indictement of the education system at all. It's more an indicator of what a parent wants for their child. I have had kids in both systems and in some instances had the kids in the public sector obtain better academic qualifications than those in private.

 

Personally, and I am not alone in this as many parents I have spoken to placed their child(ren) in a fee paying school for the same reasons, I did so for the superior pastoral care, better "community feel," (in some cases) better vocational training, and focus on "social disadvantage" and service to the community.

 

They may be fee paying schools but all of them made the kids fully aware of how lucky they were to be there, and gave them a better understanding of the issues surrounding those who couldn't afford to be.

 

In a nutshell, the fee paying schools that I chose, I chose not because they turned out better academically qualified kids but because they placed better emphasis on service to the community, and awareness of social advantage and disadvantage, somethings that I thought the public sector (in my catchment), lacked. It may well be different elsewhere.

[Peach]

I do think it is a bit of an indictment though that close to half the parental population choose to put their hands in their pockets to pay for an education when there is a freebie on offer across the street (and many have tried the free option first!).

 

It also reflects the fact that private education is still relatively affordable for a family with a decent income. In the UK you really need to have a monumental income (i.e. able to afford to pay £25k a year) before private schooling becomes an option.

[caramac]

It also reflects the fact that private education is still relatively affordable for a family with a decent income. In the UK you really need to have a monumental income (i.e. able to afford to pay £25k a year) before private schooling becomes an option.

 

25k would be for boarding schools. We don't pay anything like that. Our fees for three are 30k pa which is fairly standard. In Sydney we paid nearly $60k plus all the extras - extra/co curricular stuff, stationery and $4k for uniform! Our girls have just moved school again and the uniform came to just under 400 pounds.

Things like D of E seem to be cheaper here - middle daughter did her camps for the bronze award and the total cost was 25 pounds. Elder one did it in Sydney with her school and the cost was $1,400.

 

I don't think the system in either country is neccessarily better, it's the school. Our first experience with school was in Australia and we were really happy with it. We loved that the children ran the assemblies and that they were given the opportunity to stand up and speak to a group, even from kindergarten. The pastoral care was amazing and I would have been very happy to leave the girls there for their whole education, but we had to return to the UK. We found a good school here where they settled really quickly. The academic expectations were higher, but not at the expense of building confidence. The girls still gave assemblies and had strong ties with the local community. They were certainly never aware that they were doing SATs, no more so than they knew they were doing NAPLAN in Australia. I don't think I liked the junior school as much as I liked the one in Perth, but the girls loved it.

In 2009 we went to Sydney and educationally it was a disaster, not for the youngest who was still in junior school, but the older two had a horrible time. Some of the teachers were abusive calling the girls 'thick, stupid, cheats, liars' etc. and my middle one, who had always loved school regularly came home crying.

The homework was excessive and from what we could see, fairly pointless - 5 pages of the same maths questions which was never marked. I was looking through my eldest's book the other day and there's not a mark on it for the entire year! When I approached the head of maths she told me that they don't have time to mark homework, they're much too busy. My friend, whose daughter is still there said she was told the same thing a couple of weeks ago. She was also advised to 'go out and look at all the schools on the North Shore and see if it was any different in any of them'!

I suppose if that school had been my first experience of Australian education I would think the whole system was awful, but I know (hope!) that it is only this place.

That experience meant though that we were too scared to try somewhere else because of the ages of our daughters, so we returned to the UK until they've finished school. We've just moved to the NE and we are very happy with the school they're in here and the pastoral care is fantastic. The teachers phoned or emailed me every week for the first half term to make sure they were all settling well and to see if there were any problems. Our middle one has moved in the middle of her GCSE courses and she has had to adapt to a different exam board's expectations and the support she has been given has been exceptional, even going to her teachers' homes at a weekend, at no cost for help. Again, this isn't the system, we've just been lucky with the school we've chosen.

One thing about the UK system I don't like is how the GCSE courses start in year 9 and then it's exams for the next five years. My girls don't seem to mind, but I hate the time it takes away from having fun as a family. Even taking holidays during school holidays have to be planned carefully. All ours are year 9 and above now, so we've already had two years of it... only another five to go..

[PityTheFool]

Hi Caramac,

 

Are your experiences of Australian education from private or public schools, or a mixture?

[caramac]

Hi Caramac,

 

Are your experiences of Australian education from private or public schools, or a mixture?

 

 

Hi,

We had experience of a state primary and the junior dept of a private school in Perth. They were both good. The main reason we decided to send our middle daughter to the private school there was the pre primary teacher at the primary who didn't seem to like children very much and I think she would have destroyed her confidence. I remember her telling one child that she couldn't be Cinderella in the school play because Cinderella was pretty and a little boy he couldn't be Prince Charming because he wore glasses! Once you got past her class it was a great school.

The one in Sydney was private.