How do I understand which ACT College is right for my child?

Tetranitrate said :

Those are some nice mental acrobatics there.

Nice mental gymnastics in completely missing the point I was making

Which is:

1. the school offers a particular form of education
2. that does not suit some children
3. the school advises the parents that it does not suit the child
4. the parents make a decision on whether to keep the child enrolled
5. the school does not force the child out. its a family decision. Schools do not refuse to allow kids to continue. They may well say its not the best for the child.
6. almost inevitably the child knows they are not getting the type of education that they want anyway and is usually quite happy to leave

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

In a system like the ACT’s, does it really make much difference?

Not really, no. There aren’t really any ‘bad’ colleges. The 95% attendance requirement combined with actually being treated as and expected to act like adults effectively ensures that by the end of Term 1, year 11 all the really bad ‘problem’ kids are gone.

dtc said :

Or you could look at it as a school saying ‘we provide this type of education aimed at this type of result, and your child does not appear to be best served by undertaking this education and perhaps would be better off doing something different’.

Its not ‘gaming the system’, its actually providing analysis and feedback for individual children.

As a parent, how would you feel if your school thought ‘we think its pointless you paying us $10,000 per year because we dont offer what your child needs/is best for your child, but we aren’t going to tell you that, we are going to let you pay it’

Those are some nice mental acrobatics there.

So: the kid is A-okay staying at the school and not doing a T-package and the school is happy to take the 10k then, but if they’re going to do a T-package they best find another school to do it at so they don’t drag down the school’s average. This is in your mind ‘analysis and feedback for individual children’?

I mean I get it that the 10k+ a year people shell out for the ‘exclusive’ private schools is very much paying to make sure this sort of stuff happens, got to make sure Johny gets into Law/Medicine or whatever and ultimately as long as the system is open to it’s (reliance on scaling instead of external exams) it’s inevitable.
It leaves a bitter taste though when public schools do the exact opposite and encourage every student to do what’s in their person self interest, but hey – Hawker was a great college and I got the score I needed so I can make dealings.

Don’t pretend it’s somehow for the kid’s own good though. Being effectively kicked out of school at the end of year 10 having been at the school since year 7, because they’re not considered worthy of doing a T package is low.

I don’t know if it still happens for sure mind you, just that it was definitely happening in the mid 00s.

Tetranitrate said :

Yeah but it’s still c$%p given how the system is built, especially when some private schools actually do the opposite. ie: school career advisers would always recommend kids to keep their options open where I was (Hawker), meanwhile there were several kids who attended Hawker when I did who’d been at Radford for years 7-10 and had been ‘strongly recommended’ not to pursue a Tertiary Package there..

Or you could look at it as a school saying ‘we provide this type of education aimed at this type of result, and your child does not appear to be best served by undertaking this education and perhaps would be better off doing something different’.

Its not ‘gaming the system’, its actually providing analysis and feedback for individual children.

As a parent, how would you feel if your school thought ‘we think its pointless you paying us $10,000 per year because we dont offer what your child needs/is best for your child, but we aren’t going to tell you that, we are going to let you pay it’

milkman said :

Boo hoo. Lots of people (including me) went to cr*p schools but still made something of themselves. Once you’re either in uni or in your first proper job your results don’t mean a thing anyway.

Yeah but it’s still c$%p given how the system is built, especially when some private schools actually do the opposite. ie: school career advisers would always recommend kids to keep their options open where I was (Hawker), meanwhile there were several kids who attended Hawker when I did who’d been at Radford for years 7-10 and had been ‘strongly recommended’ not to pursue a Tertiary Package there.

Same thing used to happen with AIS kids. I don’t know if it still does go on and ultimately I got into the course I wanted, but it did feel a bit off to see the public schools advising kids based on what was in the kid’s interest while private schools were gaming the system to keep their average up.

watto23 said :

Back in the early 90’s I was a victim of Erindale college making a lot of people do the ASAT test (probably a different name now). It resulted in Erindale getting a low score in this test which meant my raw TER went from 92 to 86 and cost me a place in my preferred course. Not saying they are a bad college, but that is something I’m still not happy with. Especially when as a student I was in the top 10% on my own ASAT scores.

I think the current system is similar with a standardisation test. So maybe look at how well the schools have performed in those tests as it can make a difference. Again this is pretty old experience, but i think it still applies.

Boo hoo. Lots of people (including me) went to cr*p schools but still made something of themselves. Once you’re either in uni or in your first proper job your results don’t mean a thing anyway.

Back in the early 90’s I was a victim of Erindale college making a lot of people do the ASAT test (probably a different name now). It resulted in Erindale getting a low score in this test which meant my raw TER went from 92 to 86 and cost me a place in my preferred course. Not saying they are a bad college, but that is something I’m still not happy with. Especially when as a student I was in the top 10% on my own ASAT scores.

I think the current system is similar with a standardisation test. So maybe look at how well the schools have performed in those tests as it can make a difference. Again this is pretty old experience, but i think it still applies.

In a system like the ACT’s, does it really make much difference?

What does the kid want?

If you want to enrol in an out of area school you generally need to provide some sort of justification. This would usually be that it offers a subject your child is passionate about that isn’t available at your local school. The school’s websites probably list the available subjects – pick something kooky and dream up a story about why your kid loves it. This isn’t foolproof but you’d have a good chance. There are more details at http://www.narrabundahc.act.edu.au/our_college/enrolment under “out of area enrolment”.