Good school/bad school – is there really such a thing?

How did your parents choose what school to send you to? And if you have school age children, how did you make the same decision? Did your parents get it right? Did you?

Amy* writes

I have 2 little girls who will both be starting school in the next couple of years and I am having a terrible time trying to choose which school to send them to.   Naturally any school I visit will tell me all the things I want to hear, they all have wonderful policies for everything from bullying to community involvement. On the flip side, there is the rumour, ‘reputation’, and the “I’d never send my child to xxx ” factor.  I really struggle balancing what sometimes seems like rhetoric from the Principals, with hearing about what could be one-off negative incidents discussed by parents and filtered down the grapevine.

I live in a regional city and the schools are not zoned so I just feel really overwhelmed by the decision.  As well as public schools we have the choice of several private schools, but my husband and I can’t quite agree on whether this is something we should consider.  My husband feels strongly about our girls mixing with a wide range of people from different backgrounds and while I agree with him on the importance of that, I just want to be sure I’m providing the best opportunity I can for a good education in a safe environment.

I would love some advice from those readers who have been in my position, and also from those who may have some inside knowledge of the education system. Why have others chosen the schools they have? What should I be looking for when I visit a school? What questions should I specifically be asking to find out if the school is right for our family?  I don’t want to spark a heated debate about private versus public education, but I can’t help but wonder if a private education is really worth the financial cost?

[Image by ACVRecife]

It’s impossible to discuss choosing a school without talking about the MySchool website. So let’s. When I first heard about it, I popped online to check out my son’s school and all the schools in our area. I found it fascinating. “Genius idea!” I said to my computer. But is it really?

I heard an interview with a principal of a school which – ironically rates very highly on the MySchools website – who sounded a cautionary note. She said when the UK introduced a similar system several years ago, it had had quite a profoundly negative affect on many schools and by extension, their students.

With such a public Key Performance Indicator, the schools quickly learned how to play the system to maximise their results. This meant kids being discouraged from taking particular subjects if they weren’t going to do extremely well in them and basically tailoring the teaching of the children to get high marks – instead of an emphasis of a more well-rounded eduction.

In effect, hot-housing kids to ace tests rather than learn stuff.

What do you think? How did your parents choose the school or schools you went to and did they make the right choice? If you have kids, have you checked out the MySchool website and was it helpful?

How did you choose your child’s school? Public or private?