Back to School Again

I can't believe the girls started their second year at an Aussie school. Aliya is in Year 2, and Alanna is in Year 5, and they both seem happy to be there.

A lot of people ask me how the schools compare in Australia vs the States, so I thought I would list some of the differences. Granted, I am really only comparing one particular school here in Australia. Schools vary from place to place, just like they do in the US.  I could easily make comparisons to the Catholic school and the public school the girls attended back home. If nothing else, it's a more detailed description of the girls' school.

1. Calendar years. The school year starts in early Feb, and ends late December. That leaves a nice break during the summer here. It's certainly easier to say "the 2012 school year" instead of "the 2011-2012 school year."
2. Term structure. There are four terms of about 10 weeks each, with a two week break between terms. I much prefer this. The summer break is too long in the US: kids to get bored or forget most of what they learned. And the two week breaks between terms here is a nice treat.
3. School hours. 9 - 3:30. Much later than the girls previous two schools. Definitely works for me, and this seems to be pretty standard for the primary schools.
4. Uniforms. As far as I know, all schools, even public schools, have them here. I loved uniforms at their first school, and I love it here. Alanna sticks with the shorts and polo, while Aliya mixes it up with the prison gingham dress on some days. And of course, in Terms 1 and 4 (closest to summer) hats are required. No hat, no play. Very important because of the incredibly strong Aussie sun. They've got a saying here: Slip, Slop, Slap. Slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, slap on a hat. [Apparently they've added to it: Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek, Slide.]
5. Primary schools are grades Prep (kindergarten in the US, and just to confuse things, Aussies have "Kinder" which is like pre-school) through Year 6. Secondary schools are Years 7 - 12. Some private schools do go from Prep - 12, but I haven't seen anything equivalent to a middle school or junior high. In the Aussie state of Victoria, there are about 1500 government (public) schools, about 500 Catholic schools, and about 200 private schools. Private schools are extremely expensive, often running about 20,000 a year!  There's quite a lot of debate and angst among the Year 5 parents as they try to decide where to send their kids the year after next. I'm glad we don't have to worry about that as we'll be home before Alanna would need to go to another school.
6. Curriculum. If I had to guess, I would say Australia is behind the US. Alanna's class was memorizing times tables in Year 4, something her third grade class back home. Aliya didn't start doing spelling tests until Year 2, while they started doing them at the beginning of first grade back home. Because we pushed Alanna ahead half a year (with her birthday she made the April 1st cutoff) we're not too worried about the transition back. With Aliya, we held her back half a year (she missed the birthday cutoff and would have been by far the youngest in her class) so we may have to do some tutoring before we go back. 
7. Religious education. Even in a public or state school, there is about a half hour of religious education a week. Parents can opt-out their children, in which case they go to another room and finish classwork. I think the choices vary by school. In our case, it's Jewish or Christian education. Alanna tells me one of her Christian RE teachers is a pharmacist. Interestingly enough, last year the Victorian teacher union passed a resolution calling for the RE program to be scrapped.  It's pretty controversial. Some parents want a religious survey class instead, some are concerned about the preaching/evangelical nature of the teachings by some volunteers, and some think that religion has no place in a public school. 
8. Fruit break. Around 10:00 there is brief snack break where only fruits or vegetables are allowed. Great idea to boost their nutrition and also their attention span. Helpful to kids who eat breakfast early or isn't that hungry in the morning. This way, they won't have to wait until the official snack time (called play lunch) to eat. Even better, this year a vendor donated fruit to the school, so the kids always have a bowl of fruit available to them in the classroom.
9. Homework. What homework? Just a nightly reading journal for Aliya. Alanna's gotten a few worksheets and had a couple projects, but she usually gets those done in class. Compared to what her peers are doing back in Cali, she's getting off quite easily. Hopefully not too easily. This year should be more challenging in that regard, though I definitely appreciate the lack of stress in their schoolwork, and I do believe in letting kids have time to just have fun. Update (since I started writing this a month ago): Alanna has begun to have regular homework assignments. Alanna says: TOO MUCH! 
10. Communication with teachers. It was so convenient to email the teachers in the US. Here it's more difficult. You have to email the office which forwards it to the teacher, or write a note. Also at both schools back home, the teachers had websites with class information, homework, updates, etc. You always knew what was going on. Here, the teachers do send home notices occasionally.
11. At both schools in the US, a folder of papers came home each week. Mostly they consisted of worksheets or homework, but they might also have stories or artwork. I tried to save one item each week for a binder, and tossed recycled the rest. It was nice though, because we could see what they were working on. Here, papers rarely come home, until the end of the year. Then they bring home everything in the form of numerous scrapbooks, notebooks, and journals. It's nice to look through these items and see their progress, but it doesn't help much during the year.
12. Because of the lack of communication, it's difficult to know where the girls stand. Yes, the teachers are available for conferences. But there's no regular feedback. At the girls' first school, there was a program called GradeLink that actually let us log in and see their current grades. Which brings us to the report cards. They are actually called Reports, and they are several pages, not just a card. Additionally, report cards/progress reports only come out twice a year, and the end of Terms 2 and 4.
13. Which brings us to the grading system. Ugh! Here's how it works in the state of Victoria. If your child is performing at the "standard expected at this time of year," they get a C. So even if they do all of the expected work perfectly, that's a C. To get a B, they need to be working about 6 months ahead and to get an A, they need to be performing at a whole grade level higher. Now, one of the girls did get a few As, so it is possible. But for the most part, especially in things such as Arts, PE, Science, and Computers, they really have no opportunity to be a year ahead, or show that they can perform at a much higher level. When discussing this with the teachers, they suggested we think of the C's as B's, and the B's as A's. I suppose, but I think it's a difficult standard to explain.Following the pages of explanations and grades is a whole page written by their primary teacher. What the child has achieved, areas for improvement, how the school will support the child, and what we can do at home. Some of it is clearly cut-and-pasted, but for our girls, there was plenty of specific information that clearly related to them. The next page has a paragraph from each of the specialist teachers (art, Italian, Music and PE.) Finally, there is a page of self-assesment by the child, which is always a bit interesting to see how they perceive their strengths and weaknesses.
14. Focus on environment. I've seen more "green" initiatives here in Oz. Our school here has Nude Food Wednesdays, where a "Golden Trashcan" is awarded to the class with the most "Nude Food," (no wrappers or trash, only containers.) Also each upper class has a member in the Green Team, which organizes school clean ups and help count Nude Food lunches.
15. Focus on charities seems pretty good here.There were numerous times during the year where the children had the opportunity to help less fortunate. Alanna was so inspired by one activity to raise money for Save the Children that she held her own fundraiser.
16. Leadership opportunities. Our current school seems to try hard to foster leadership and public speaking. Every week the older children organize and lead the assembly. There is a junior school council for Year 3s and up. A boy and girl rep is selected by a vote from each class. Year 6 has House captains and vice-captains, also voted on by their classmates. (There are four houses at our school, and no, they aren't Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin.)
17. IT. This varies from school to school. Ours has some catching up to do. Alanna's classroom didn't have a smart board until the middle of Term 3 last year. Halfway through Alanna's year: SuperClubs. As you might have read on Alanna's blog entry, she's learned quite a bit. She's been known to say things like, "I'll send you the URL link to the page after I upload this graphics for my image store." Love it! Lower grades use the computer room which has maybe 20 computers, not quite enough for a whole class. [Update: went to a "Coffee with the Principal" on Friday and asked about this. They'll have 25 PCs in there by the end of the Term 1. Whoo hoo.] Usually they go once a week. Year 5 and 6 students are meant to use laptops and iPads in the Senior Learning Center. They've been working on an Ultranet for a few years now, and that should be pretty cool once it's completely rolled out. When it's ready, they can create their own blogs with external links, email, calendars, classroom assignments.
18. Language. Back home, one school had Spanish, the other school had no foreign language. In Australia, I believe every school has a LOTE (Language Other Than English) program. The language varies by school, and at ours it's Italian. 
19. Money. We do pay a fee upfront, I think it was several hundred dollars, to cover various expenses. But it seems like almost every week one child or the other comes home with an envelope requesting money for this activity or that excursion or a bus trip. Or the gold coins for Icy Pole day, or special Free Dress days. It's not the money per se, but the constant demands and the need to continually come up with the right amount of small bills/coins.
20. Classroom activities. When I was the room parent for Alanna's class back home, the main job was organizing the class holiday parties. They don't have them here. This year I am class rep for Alanna's class (didn't get it for Aliya's unfortunately) and my main tasks are organizing contact details from everyone for a class list, and arranging a few get-togethers for the parents outside of school.

All in all, we're satisfied with the education our girls are receiving at a good public school. Which is good, because we chose this neighborhood for the school, knowing it would be a massive burden to afford private school here. The kids are having fun, making friends, learning a lot, and getting exposed to a lot of new things. I wasn't so sure at first, especially since the girls left such a great enviroment. Aliya had the most bubbly, enthusiastic teacher so it difficult to switch to a more serious, quiet type. And Alanna had a very motivated and inspired teacher who constantly supported and challenged her, and also gave them so many cool technology tools to assist their learning. Her teacher last year in Australia left a bit to be desired...

   I have to say that I am especially excited for Alanna this year. The Year 5 teachers (three of them) are a fabulous team. At the Parent Information Night they kept talking over each other in their excitement to discuss all of the ways they have to make learning fun. They showed off the green screens, boom mikes and professional-quality podcast microphones that were used last year to make movies about the planets, example. Sure is more interesting to make a movie about why you should move to Mars instead of just writing a report, don't you think?

   We all know a good education is one of the best gifts you can give a child. Our parents valued a top-notch education, which is why both Andy's parents and mine made sure we went to great schools. It served us well, and we hope it will serve our kids as well down the road...they need to get good jobs and support us in our old age, right??