National Education > General National Education Discussion
Private Schools
Rietie:
I go to a private school myself that costs around $14/15,000 a year, excluding compulsory building donations and laptop hiring. I think maybe a private school is worth it for year 7 and above but definitely not in primary school years. My private school has been incredibly beneficial for me as it challenged me and made me work harder instead of just lazing around (I did that in the private school before that, but it was a crappy private school - cost around $3,000 per year).
I think private schools then can be really helpful in motivating slackers and making them do better because of the more competitive environment. But sometimes you can become a bit snobby because of the social environment, and it's also hard when it's not a co-ed private school (like mine). But female private schools can be really helpful for girls as they gain more confidence in subjects such as the sciences and the maths that are usually dominated by males.
Umm...yeh... I may be a bit biased as I've gone to 3 different private schools since year 7, although I did go to a state primary school.
pariah:
--- Quote from: kido_1 on December 01, 2007, 08:20:35 am ---Those fees are nothing compared to those of NSW.
I was surprised Melbourne Grammar(Boys) and Geelong Grammar were not on the list.
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I have to somewhat agree (I go to Melbourne Grammar). The thing is, like half our year level (100 boys) are "all the way"; that is, they start in Prep at MGS (which is about 15k a year), and stay at the school for 13 years (except some go to timbertop for a year...). Anyway, out of those who started in prep, only one or two are 'top students' (academically). Virtually all of the top students come in at year 7 (which incidentally, is the year they offer scholarships for) or year 9 (another scholarship intake year).
As for the quality of education, I honestly would say that the quality is not much, if at all, better than a public school. HOWEVER, the intial image of the school makes it a confluence of many bright minds, and therefore, you are surrounded by good students (which I suppose can help bring ur level up). Really, much of the price u pay is for the peers (same with the uni's listed above like Harvard..., which actually has a very generous financial aid program; mean aid is 30k a year off price).
Another aspect of private schools is that they often teach subjects that are esoteric, and very marks-orientated. An example at our school is LATIN (number 1 subject for scaling...45 mean). So many students take it, and the school poaches the top Latin teachers in Victoria, so our scores in this subject are very high. I'm sure very few public schools (and I definitely do not refer to MHS or macrob, coz whilst they are public, they far surpass any other public schools) do any subjects for the sake of marks (out of 200 students a year level..100 do spec, 60 do latin, and next year, once classical greek starts up...i'm sure heaps will do that as well). Still, i'm not complaining - i luv the English faculty...so many 50s! and also...second highest school for 99.95s: we had 3..MLC had 4.
cara.mel:
--- Quote from: Pariah on December 22, 2007, 03:56:28 pm ---(out of 200 students a year level..100 do spec,
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Far out, out of ~170 at my one, about 15 people did spec this year. Including 2 year 11s.
I went to local public primary school, private HS. Coming into year 7 it was immediately obvious to me who went to the primary school - they had simply learnt a hell of a lot more, probably had teachers that actually understood maths and didn't pass it over to you to explain things etc. Their advantage didn't last for very long, by the end of year 7 I had caught up to them :D
I agree that it's probably the community there that makes it better than a public HS, actual quality of education I think I would have done almost as good at VCE anywhere. But in terms of having other people there that I got along with, that I wasn't clearly a huge gap ahead of the rest, that was great. And for learning things in general outside academic. Like, if it hadn't been for school making everyone do a summer/winter sport, I would have missed out on all that and that was definitely worth it, even it was like the junior E team. =P. Oh and getting to learn an instrument in year 7 as well, that rocked. =)
--- Quote from: Rietie on December 22, 2007, 02:12:28 pm --- But female private schools can be really helpful for girls as they gain more confidence in subjects such as the sciences and the maths that are usually dominated by males.
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In my IS class I was the only girl there, was by far the best subject I did in terms of entertainment value, generally having a good time etc =D. Maybe I'm an exception not a rule but
pariah:
--- Quote from: cara.mel on December 22, 2007, 05:22:29 pm --- I think I would have done almost as good at VCE anywhere.
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This is very much the case; the top students (i.e. those who are inherently intelligent, those who are very motivated), like urself (evident from score) will always perform very well. However, it is exactly for this reason that those VCE statistics they publish in the paper each year always focus on the median scores. This is quite clearly because a school should be judged on how well it can bring up the middle student, not the talented student (whose score will be high regardless - about all a private school does for a talented student is boosts their ENTER a small amount). Again however, schools can somewhat artificially bring up their median ENTERs by getting students to do subjects for the sake of score, or, alternatively, artificially bring up the median study score by getting students to do predominantly subjects that the school is strong at. If you look at this year stats for example, Macrob and MHS (which have multitudes of talent) dominate at 1 and 2...but the next highest public school is at 27 (and even then, it is a subject selective school, VCA). i think all this rant has done is elucidate exactly how difficult it is to compare public and private schools..lol (pointless!)
brendan:
--- Quote from: Pariah on December 22, 2007, 06:40:28 pm ---(whose score will be high regardless - about all a private school does for a talented student is boosts their ENTER a small amount).
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A study done by Australian Council for Educational Research and the Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research has found that: "When controlling for socioeconomic background and [Year 9] achievement in literacy and numeracy, the average ENTER score of independent and Catholic school students is 5 and 3 score points above that of government school students."
http://melbourneinstitute.com/conf/prevconf/Papers_presentations/Marks_Gary.pdf
--- Quote from: cara.mel on December 22, 2007, 05:22:29 pm ---Again however, schools can somewhat artificially bring up their median ENTERs by getting students to do subjects for the sake of score, or, alternatively, artificially bring up the median study score by getting students to do predominantly subjects that the school is strong at.
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So what? There is nothing wrong with that.
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