I think that in the end, you pick the best school for your child, area and finances.
I looked at 15 primary schools for my son. This included public and private, religious and non religious. The reason for this zeal? A highly gifted little boy with a sensitive nature – yes, he has been tested, I’m not just a proud mum here! So the choice of school for him was very important.
I did choose a private school. Why? Because they were the only one who consistently demonstrated that they did stuff like group children by ability rather than age for subjects (as proof, my Year 1 son is doing Year 3 maths in the Year 3/4 classroom). They also had a dedicated group of special aides – some of whom specialise in gifted education.
Other schools talked a lot about their “gifted” programme, but were unable to show me it in action. For kids like my son, one hour a week in a pull out group isn’t enough.
And, on a more personal level, I was extremely impressed with the children we met at the school. They were polite, friendly, eager to talk about their school, there was obvious affection and respect for their teachers, and generally there was a positive, supportive atmosphere. They’re the sort of peers I want around my son.
In another area, who knows? Maybe the school that was the best fit for my son would have been a public school.
But for me, after spending countless hours sussing out the 15 schools – there was one standout, and that’s where my son now is. As expected, his path hasn’t always been easy, but I have been incredibly impressed by the support and dedication shown by the principal, teachers and special aides at the school to do everything they can to nurture his talents while growing his whole being.
10/10 for his school. I haven’t regretted one single cent I’ve spent.Keep smiling
Felicity
I should add that I hadn’t actualy even considered sending my kids to a private primary school, I’d always thought that if I did send them to a private school it would only be for secondary, and then only if I really felt they would benefit from it and they wanted to go.
I went to a public primary school and was bored stupid and got into a lot of trouble. I then got a scholarship to a top private girls school, and it totally changed my life. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. But then again, I saw other girls there who were only there because their parents could afford it, and they were miserable.
I believe that the ultimate goal is to provide the best schooling you can for your child, according to their needs. On that basis, I believe choice is important. I also think too many parents make automatic choices, both private and public, and don’t spend enough time considering whether the school they’ve chosen is really the best fit for their child.
I also believe that some of my taxes should go towards supporting that choice. Certainly a larger share of the pie should go to the public system, but I don’t think it’s fair to totally remove support to the private system either. that’s how the preschol system in Victoria works. Every 4yo child is entitled to a set amount of funding, regardless of preschool. If I then want to go to the private Montessori preschool instead of the local public preschool, then I pay more for that choice. However I don’t see why my child should receive no funding at all just because I chose the private option. There should be a basic level of funding applied to all school children regardless of school, and then there should be a “slush fund” over and above that which is predominantly allocated to public schools.
And it’s late and I’m waffling.Keep smiling
FelicityCelvia, I think my post is self explanatory.
If you want an aswer, ask specific questions.May God prosper you always.[biggrin]
Marcits funny how private school parents never really question the decision they make. in fact the choice is seen, discussed with overwhelming pride. this is because the choice is also a status issue. the fact your children went to ‘grammer school’ makes you the parent feel a whole lot better about life.
the choice is always discussed in such a mature manner with phrases like ‘we looked at all the available alternatives’ and ‘we made a choice based on whats best for our child’ blah b;lah blah. of course you did and i wouldnt expect you to admit if you didnt.
what im calling for is a bit of perspective. also what a bout the kids being left behind. are you concerned about the gap? the class divide??? we are not a communist or socialist state but if you look at systems in scandanavia i think they have it right…
cheers
If your comments didn’t suffer from overwhelming stereotyping, aussierogue, maybe they would be more convincing. Choosing a school isn’t always about status. If I was that concerned with status, I hardly think I would drive the car I do! The only thing that concerns me is my son. I look at him today, absolutely thriving, and know it has been a lot of hard work from us as parents and his school, particularly his teachers and the special aides, who have helped him get there. He never would have had access to that sort of support and attention at the local public schools. I don’t see where status enters into that equation. Now, instead of having a little boy who is finally starting to enjoy school and participate, we would have had a little boy who spent his whole day off in a far away place in his head that was a lot more interesting than the schoolwork in front of him which he already knew. That’s where he was at when he started prep.
I’m not going to disagree that there are parents who send their kids to private schools for status, but don’t stereotype all the parents as the same.
Next you’ll be saying that all landlords are rich, wealthy fatcats who should be taken for every cent you can get…Keep smiling
Felicityfelicity. you are correct i was stereotyping. but only to provide a contrast against what i think are stereotypical attitudes. i agree there is heaps of room for people to make intelligent / educted choices about where to send there kids, and i also aknowledge at the end of the day this could very well be a private school. but wouldnt it be nice if the public schoolo system could have catered better for your child?? im sure you would agree!! then my question to you is this. what are YOU doing to try and make the public school system better?? what are YOU doing to try and make a great education possible for everyone? (not just kids with access to money)
why did you with a gifted child have to make a greater sacrifice than a rich person with a gifted child???
the point is that it doesnt have to be this way!!
there are heaps of things that schools dont teach you like judgment, ethics, persepctive, critical thinking etc.
lots more in this world to think about than a ter score!!
teach your kid that and it will be worth more than the 150k you would have spent at the end of his private school tuition.
Well people, all I can say is don’t do to your kids what my folks did to me. They let me go through all of the examinations (which were quite a few) for the two private schools I was interested in in year 6 to start in year 7. When the results came in, they told me I had been knocked back to both. Later, when I went back to visit my old primary school teacher, who had spent many hours tutoring me to help me get into my first choice of schools, he asked me why I had chosen to go to public school over the two private schools that I had so badly wanted to go to and worked so hard to achieve. I said “Easy, I didn’t get into either”. He looked very upset and told me I had been accepted to my first choice and got a scholarship to the second and that maybe I should have a chat to my dad as to why they told me otherwise. I did so and they said that they couldn’t afford the education costs at the time. Since I had received a scholarship to the second choice I knew this wasn’t true. I then asked my mother about this when she got home. I was told that since I was a girl my father and her had decided that I didn’t need as much of an education as a boy and therefore they couldn’t justify any extra expense for my schooling (apparently even on a scholarship it still costs more than public education). As you can imagine I wasn’t very impressed, my grades went from being one of the top in the class to one of the bottom and I didn’t regain my enthusiasm for study until I went to university many years later. Even then I still thought it was all worthless as I was a girl.
Very sad. Don’t let this happen to your kids.
Thanks,
Luckyonei told you parents need a licence to parent. hope all is well now luckyone.
Yeah, it’s OK now. I mean it’s a really really long time ago now. I’m still pissed off with them about it, but I wouldn’t bring it up again. It’s two long ago to stress about and my life has worked out well anyway. I just think back now of all the years I wasted being angry with them over this and throwing away my education. Just feel a bit stupid really. That’s all it comes down to.
Thanks,
Luckyoneaussierogue
Don’t even get me started on the way the public school system to a great extent ignores the needs of gifted kids, I can seriously rant and rave on that subject for a LONG time!
I seriously considered sending my son to a public school and then driving everybody there nuts pushing for what I knew he’d need in order to thrive, but in the end I really just felt it wasn’t worth it. too much stress! I think it’s sad that many of our brightest kids really are left to stagnate in schools that can’t cater for them. I’d love to see a system similar to the USA where they have magnet schools for gifted kids. There are a few public schools who specialise in this area, but it’s pitiful – and mostly the best programs are in secondary schools too.
I certainly belong to a group that advocates more public school options for gifted kids and regularly lobbies the government on the subject.
In the end, I certainly plan to earn as much as I can running my investment business, then the government can tax me more and have more money for public schools!!Luckyone – that sucks. My mum was a single parent, working as a teacher, with 4 teenage kids – and I still got to accept my scholarship. So the money angle really doesn’t convince me.
And in general – in the end as a parent you’re the one who is supposed to raise them and teach them the most important things in life like values and ethics and…. I get really cheesed off with people who seem to think it’s a school’s job to raise their child.
I feel another rant and rave coming on, I’d better go!!!Keep smiling
Felicitytheres alot of kids like luckyone who try and get scholarships to private schools and yet unlike luckone they dont get in because they are not deemed smart enough. spare a thought for these kids – not only do they realise pretty early they are not smart but they also realise they arent rich enough either. i hope they have nice teeth.
what a double whammy to handle at such a young age.
maybe this is the reason we (some parents) are so pro private school becasue some of us parents dont want our kids to feel as low as we did when we had to attend a lowly public school. again we are getting closer to the truth imho.
what a web we spin….
two choices – 1)feel bad that we arent rich or smart or 2) have a public system that caters for most kids and give them somewhat of an equal chance.. or atleast a better chance..
spare a thought for these kids – not only do they realise pretty early they are not smart but they also realise they arent rich enough eitheraussierogue, i don’t know if not getting a scholarship has that effect on a child. Surely the child is more likely to shape their reaction on how their parents handle the rejection. Kids are naturally resilient, i read somewhere that the emotion of embarassment doesn’t develop until a few years into the child’s life.
also:
we had to attend a lowly public schoolsurely the child doesn’t deem public schools as lowly, i think it’s all about the parents views on the matter and how they portray public and private schools.
e x
g’day emacdonald – it is my understanding that kids spend heaps of time and money these days trying to get scholarships. apparently there is even after school tuition groups designed to prepare children better for scholarship exams. so im not sure kids wont feel bad for not getting a placement. if you dont think kids feel resentment/embarrasment etc i think you should go and watch the under 7’s football on a weekend. and yes this will depend heavily on the parents, as do most things in a childs life. but parents dont help. in one of the weekend papers there was an article about how vcompetative ‘mothers groups’ are – so yes this type of thing starts at a very very early age..
ps – if they dont consider public schools as lowly then why are they trying to leave???
dont see too many private school kids getting really excited about the prospect of one day going back to a public school.
it just doesnt happen because of the perceptrion right or wrong, that one is better (and hence one is worse) than the other.cheers
aussierogue,
good point about the under 7’s football team… i really do think the onus is on the parents to let their kids know that are loved and valued whatever school they attend.e x
ex – sorry but one more point – ‘show me the child at 7 and i will show you the man’.
ps – interesting to see lathams announcment today. and he went to a public school….
What’s wrong with realising you aren’t as rich or smart as someone else? Is that any different to realising you’re probably richer or smarter than someone else?
Individuals are comprised of thousands of different skills, abilities and circumstances. Each one of these fits somewhere on a continuum from best to worst. Instead of trying to protect our kids from the fact that there will probably always be someone on the “better” side of the continuum in virtually everything they do, why not focus on accepting differences, and being proud of what they can do. I always encourage my kids to think more along the lines of, well, maybe I’m smarter than that kid, but then he’s much better at football – or whatever it might be. That way they learn to appreciate and respect their differences, while still feeling comfortable in their own skin and appreciating their own strengths. They also learn to feel okay about the fact that someone else is better than them at something, because they know that they have other strengths that are important and valuable too.Keep smiling
Felicitywhat are YOU doing to try and make the public school system better?? what are YOU doing to try and make a great education possible for everyone? (not just kids with access to money)why did you with a gifted child have to make a greater sacrifice than a rich person with a gifted child???
the point is that it doesn’t have to be this way!!
Interesting ideas Aussie, (I though the party folded in 1991[cap])
Q: What am I doing to make the public school better?
A: Pay taxes and vote. Certainly not using my kids as political football.I think Franklin’s “No Frills” has a market, but I buy my food at the deli. Should I feel guilty about it? Should we all buy no frills to “support the cause”? Well if it’s worth while you may have my vote but… I’m not sure yet which cause are we asked to support.
Q: what are YOU doing to try and make a great education possible for everyone?
A: Since I am not welcome in Parliament just yet, and I have left the trenches a long time ago, My answer is: Pay taxes.See governments of the world have long given up on producing money to equalise society. They now make money by selling the country assets and call it privatisation, and by milking the private sector. This money is then dutifully thrown at the voters willy-nilly with magnanimous gesture, pretending to be the owners of it.
If anything is left over, it is reluctantly used to prop up those annoying sectors that give deficit like p.transport, p.education, p.health and police. (Armed forces are propped up according to what the real masters dictate)
Q: “why did you with a gifted child have to make a greater sacrifice than a rich person with a gifted child???”
A: Why do I have to save for a whole year to buy myself a Mercedes when rich people can just buy it from petty cash?
Why do we live in a capitalist system yet when it comes to education we long for communism? Strange in deed … and naive.
I think we have a healthy portion of socialism built into our public sector that allows whoever really wants to succeed to do so without barriers.To think that the privilege that prosperity gives to the one that have obtained it, must be removed by force by acts of law to make the rich eat dust and make all kids somehow magically equal is absurd.
It is not only not possible, it would be highly unjust and more important disregards completely the fact that kids are not an isolate entity but part of a family and a family usually has parents who has as much say if not more than the kids, and have as much if not more responsibility in the kids future than the kid.
So we go full circle back to my previous post.
Public schools are not the product of their budget but the product of the demands the parents and by extension the kids put on the school, meaning the teachers and principal, since the building does not answer to questions.There are few good public schools, all in the more expensive suburbs. Do you think they are better because they have a better budget? Well their budget is not different since allocation in the public system varies according to the number of pupils. So what is the difference? As I said before, the parents and the kids and as a consequence, the teachers. Successful people tend to demand success and such demands produce results.
Why are most public schools bad or worst? Simple, parents from those schools don’t demand from their kids nor from the teachers, and expect the government to fix it.
You are trying a guilt trip here, “What are YOU doing” well my answer is NOTHING since I don’t use the services of a public school.
Do I think it could be better?
Absolutely!
Do I think it is up to the government to improve it?
Not for a minute!
It is up to the USERS of the system, and I am not such user. I only PAY for it.[comp]May God prosper you always.[biggrin]
Marcmarc youre a hard man. now im starting to think youre a DARWINIAN. survival of the fittest eh!! you make some good points but i would say this. there are many parts of the world that treat this type of thing much better than us aussies. norway for example – one of the richest countries in the world have a brilliant social system whilst maintaining the basis of a capitalist society. they are healthy happy and wealthy. as are us aussies in the main. but we can always do things better…
ps – what do you think of someone earning 50k a year struggling to get by – part of there taxed goes to funding a swimming pool at scotch college??? its absurd!!!
lathams got it right…(or should i say left)
What I personally find much more hard to swallow is the foreign aid sent to countries that are notoriously corrupt. There we are funding the swimming pool of foreign “dignitaries”. .. and I am sorry for using such anachronism.
I rather deal with the real or perceived inequality of public spending then to se our hard earned dollars wasted in some “victim” country.May God prosper you always.[biggrin]
Marci cant stand chivatos[cigar]
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