Mayor insists that NSB + NSG should become partially selective schools? (1 Viewer)

[Trebla]

You said that students do better in different environments. Some do well in high competition and some don't, just like some do better at single sex or co-ed schools. So thereby providing students and parents with a wider range of choice for what high school they or their child can attend, you can better allocate students to their suitable environments. You've argued previously in this thread about keeping kids that need this environment out because they don't fit the criteria you like and about the worries of "reputational risk".

I am talking about kids that desire the selective school environment being kept out and therefore being placed in an environment they aren't suited to. By reducing the total number of selective places as a consequence of NSB/NSG becoming a partially selective school, you are effectively reducing the supply for something that has already a great demand.

Naturally, NSB/NSG have rather competitive environments and it is embedded in their culture. For a local student seeking a more 'typical' school environment with less competition, NSB/NSG would not exactly be suitable for them and even if NSB/NSG experience the culture shift by becoming a partially selective school (which will take time and many costs incurred) they still need to put up with a competitive environment anyway (though relatively less competitive compared to a fully selective school) which is much less than ideal (which relates to my point of the partially selective school model being flawed - though I sorta gave it more from a selective student's point of view before because they tend to be more detrimented in this case).

This leads to the question of changing NSB/NSG into fully non-selective schools to better cater for those who seek a less competitive environment (this is probably where reputation really becomes an issue) but this comes at the expense of denying a huge number of students who seek the competitive/selective school environment due to decreasing the already limited supply of places (not to mention the great costs of such a drastic change).

This is why building a new school is a favourable option. As I mentioned already, by placing students who seek that non-competitive environment in that school you can have a higher intake of local students seeking non-competitive environments (compared to the limited intake in a partially selective school case) to better absorb the growth in their population at present and in future years. Furthermore, they do not have to put up with a competitive environment that they do not desire so there are benefits from the local student's point of view (seeking non-competitive environments). From a selective student's point of view, this would mean the number of selective school vacancies has not plummeted. (It would also be desirable to have more selective school places as well but that's a different story and argument altogether)

 

[Drongoski]

There are many who do not support the idea of selective public schools. The Mayor of North Sydney may very well be one of them. Therefore she would not feel for the need to preserve the status quo as much as those who are in favour of the provision of selective schools and, as many here are, current or past students of selective schools.

In my view, any change to partial selective or comprehensive for NSG/NSB, would be a tragedy.

 

[niloony]

The whole selective system right now is a bit of a dud since it's almost impossible to get in without a year of coaching college and that is basically the only requirement. However turning leading selective schools into partially selective would make the whole thing a complete farce.

It's the opinions of a mayor on local issues above state issues so it's a cliched situation anyway. The schools take pressure off their own local areas. Though i can see a particularly stupid state government blaming their own selective system for every public school being at over capacity.

 

[Trebla]

The whole selective system right now is a bit of a dud since it's almost impossible to get in without a year of coaching college and that is basically the only requirement. However turning leading selective schools into partially selective would make the whole thing a complete farce.

lol wut? Plenty of people have got into selective schools without setting foot in a coaching college.

 

[Bored_of_HSC]

I believe the "prestige" of these individual schools shouldn't be a leading reason to keep them from this change (this seems to be the prevailing point of arguement against the people against this)

Both schools are public institutions and thus should serve PUBLIC interests. Other solutions should be tried and tested (such as developing the school's there already), but if it comes to spending considerable amounts of money (developing schools in such close proximity to the city - and thus probably having much land would be quite expensive) then this is more practical and viable.

 

[nerdasdasd]

I believe the "prestige" of these individual schools shouldn't be a leading reason to keep them from this change (this seems to be the prevailing point of arguement against the people against this)

Both schools are public institutions and thus should serve PUBLIC interests. Other solutions should be tried and tested (such as developing the school's there already), but if it comes to spending considerable amounts of money (developing schools in such close proximity to the city - and thus probably having much land would be quite expensive) then this is more practical and viable.

+1.

 

[niloony]

lol wut? Plenty of people have got into selective schools without setting foot in a coaching college.

While being one of them and having known lots of them the problem is steadily getting worse as the test does not change and the colleges get better at what they do. This is especially the case in top selective schools like the aforementioned.

Of course whether or not this is actually a bad thing is a much more icky matter for debate.

 

[nerdasdasd]

personally, i would disagree with this.
I got into a top 5 school this year without any coaching, but most of the other 15 or 20 people that entered with me already went to a coaching college (because they came from other selective schools)

so yeah, unless you are referring to lower ranked selective schools, i think niloony is right

I think so too, why else would there be so many coaching colleges for selective school entries ?

 

[deloving]

Selective schools exist so that students can experience a more stimulating and enriching environment with more like-minded peers and a more specialised teaching program (of course subject to their choice to be in such an environment). If you reduce that then you are effectively denying good opportunities (for which there exists sufficient resources to build) for a large group of people who desire that kind of environment.

But with this comprehensive level students have the opportunity to be integrated into an elite environment. This just reminds me how I hate the Australian system of 6-year primary, 6-year high school. I understand that "elite students" should be given the opportunities to exploit their potential, however, the selective test is taken at the age of 12 and in my opinion it shouldn't be the main thing that determines how the student will proceed with the rest of his education. I attend a public high school, and I know there are many excellent students who did not get into a selective school purely because, at the time, they were not mature enough to make a decision for themselves. Students who did go on to selective high school were more than likely to be forced by their parents from a young age, while some students in public schools don't have such 'realization' until about year 9. Anyways, I understand they have the option to transfer to a selective school, but that's not my point. If a bunch of average-students were now allowed to attend an elite high school like NSB/NGS, they would be pressured to do well, just like some not so bright students pick up their game in public schools because there is some pressure from the very few elite students that attend the school (I'm talking from experience here).

Can you imagine top students suddenly failing because a few 'dumber' students join in and oh, the environment is now more like the real world where there is a huge variety of people who definitely do not have the same view of things as you?

In my opinion it could potentially benefit both sides, however as people do not like change we might as well just make another school in the area.

 

[niloony]

I think we're seeing intellectual elitism as something of an apartheid. There is always a large group of students in selective schools who are intelligent but who cruise along without working very hard. It is only when they are forced to compare themselves to intelligent people who also work hard that they to strive to achieve fantastic marks. Thus there is benefit in selective students being with selective students as not all are as..."selective"...

In my opinion it could potentially benefit both sides, however as people do not like change we might as well just make another school in the area.

Well if we kick out half of the selective school slots we'll have to build another school in a different area. Maybe more than one school as the spread across suburbs would be extensive.

One interesting change due to coaching colleges and expanding cultural differences is that first generation "professional" families that have lived in Australia for multiple generations(Politically correct way to say white family, athiest, small house, north shore) will be unable to get their children into selective schools or private schools as they distrust the snooty/religious private system and weren't on the ball regarding ignoring the syllabus. Whereas they used to flood the selective system. This could improve public schools in middle class areas at least.

 

[RivalryofTroll]

There are many who do not support the idea of selective public schools. The Mayor of North Sydney may very well be one of them. Therefore she would not feel for the need to preserve the status quo as much as those who are in favour of the provision of selective schools and, as many here are, current or past students of selective schools.

In my view, any change to partial selective or comprehensive for NSG/NSB, would be a tragedy.

I think we're being a bit extreme here with the exaggeration.

I quote from Rafael Nadal, after losing to a ranked 100th opponent in 2012 Wimbledon 2nd round as the 2ND SEED, 'It's not a tragedy, it's only a tennis match'.

No-one is going to die if NSB/NSG is converted to partial selective. (maybe some mini-heartattacks from Asian parents though )

But, it'd just be a weird decision considering the school's illustrious history I guess.

 

[Trebla]

But with this comprehensive level students have the opportunity to be integrated into an elite environment.

'Comprehensive' students who want to be integrated into an elite environment are effectively selective students (or desire to be).

If a bunch of average-students were now allowed to attend an elite high school like NSB/NGS, they would be pressured to do well, just like some not so bright students pick up their game in public schools because there is some pressure from the very few elite students that attend the school (I'm talking from experience here).

Can you imagine top students suddenly failing because a few 'dumber' students join in and oh, the environment is now more like the real world where there is a huge variety of people who definitely do not have the same view of things as you?

In my opinion it could potentially benefit both sides, however as people do not like change we might as well just make another school in the area.

That's the ideal outcome behind a partially selective school model. However, in reality this is simply not happening. I went to a partially selective school myself and it generally outperforms every other partially selective school out there. However, on nearly every occasion it still performs lower than a number of fully comprehensive schools (so imagine the performance of the other partially selective schools). If anything, the influence is the other way around.

The point that having 'elite' students will pressure average students to pick up their game is simply not happening. In partially selective schools, the selectives and non-selectives are mixed classes. In this situation, there is no way that a teacher would use a teaching model designed for 'elite' students because it simply won't work on the not so bright students. Hence, the teacher must resort to the general model designed for comprehensive school students to cater for a broader spectrum of abilities. This doesn't give any benefit to the selective students at all, because their potential is not being nurtured by the appropriate teaching program (they are effectively being treated like comprehensive students). The stimulating environment, while it still exists due to the mere presence of these selective students, is hardly there because it is not promoted by the teachers.

 

[Erinaceous]

Isn't Bradfield a TAFE?
The rest of this is fine though, I guess.

Yeah, building a new one would be better, because like, don't NSB/NSG only have the resources for a certain amount a students anyways???

because there are only a certain amount of selective schools with a certain amount of places, and they are spaced around Sydney in a way that people can go to their closest one and stuff.
So a lot of people would be disadvantaged from this.
Hs to be in North Sydney because there are selective schools in Sydney CBD and around there, in the west and etc. but those two are the main (if not only, I dunno) selective schools in northern Sydney.

I just feel like there are selective schools in other areas, and clearly they offer a better environment and education for brighter kids which they deserve so why should we disturb that for NSG/B?

I guess a solution could be to put the two schools together and then make the smaller campus a partially-selective school.
But this would drastically reduce places available at NSG/B and would take AT LEAST 6 years to transition and would be fairly difficult to plan IMO.

No.

It's not about the success at a non-selective school because of them.
The teaching is worse because the teachers are usually trying to control the class rather than teach.
Talented students can be neglected because of this.
And sometimes the facilities and teaching just aren't up to standard just because the school is a bit shit.

But yeah, reputation and shit I do agree with.
It's a public school, they can do what they want.
This should be an argument an out education not really reputation.


but we want a quick fix! Because its the government and that's what they do!

Those two aren't the only selective schools in northern sydney - if by northern sydney you mean the northern beaches accounted as well...
NBSCMSC is within North Curl curl. We were ranked 8th in 2012 and are currently 11th for the 2013 peeps

 

[nerdasdasd]

'Comprehensive' students who want to be integrated into an elite environment are effectively selective students (or desire to be).

That's the ideal outcome behind a partially selective school model. However, in reality this is simply not happening. I went to a partially selective school myself and it generally outperforms every other partially selective school out there. However, on nearly every occasion it still performs lower than a number of fully comprehensive schools (so imagine the performance of the other partially selective schools). If anything, the influence is the other way around.

The point that having 'elite' students will pressure average students to pick up their game is simply not happening. In partially selective schools, the selectives and non-selectives are mixed classes. In this situation, there is no way that a teacher would use a teaching model designed for 'elite' students because it simply won't work on the not so bright students. Hence, the teacher must resort to the general model designed for comprehensive school students to cater for a broader spectrum of abilities. This doesn't give any benefit to the selective students at all, because their potential is not being nurtured by the appropriate teaching program (they are effectively being treated like comprehensive students). The stimulating environment, while it still exists due to the mere presence of these selective students, is hardly there because it is not promoted by the teachers.

If they let "normal" people go in, the school ranks will go down . It is like letting struggling people in a accelerating class...

I am not hating on non selective school people, but people at selective schools are on a different academic par of comprehensive schools (most).

 

[SylviaB]

That's not the whole deal. I've seen this happen in other classes at my school (i.e: a sub-550 ranked high school), but it didn't happen in mine. Teachers and environment are not the most important factor, personal motivation, dedication and hard work is. You can put the best student in the state in any school in this state and they will learn and come out on top because they're going to put in the hard yards. You can put the worst kid in the absolute best and most premium environment, and they still won't learn or perform well because they aren't cut out for it.

as someone who went to public school filled with well below-average students, I can assure you that I was absolutely held back by this environment

I still went well and stuff but I would be much better off if I had been around students my own caliber

 

[salshel]

No offense or anything but why aren't they doing anything to the gazillion private schools around North Sydney? I mean... people have said above "WELL THE PROBLEM IS THAT NSG/B IS SPECIFICALLY LOCATED IN NORTH SYDNEY WHERE THERE'S A SCHOOL SHORTAGE" Well, wtf are all these private schools there for? What, so they're just skirting by the sidelines and not taking any responsibility for this massive overload of students?

If parents can afford to live in a pretty well-off suburb like North Sydney, afford to pay a pretty high mortgage (Families with children in North Sydney have a median family income of $3412 pw -http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/LGA15950?opendocument&navpos=220; fyi $1,234 is the weekly median family income across Australia- http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0), they can afford the massive quantities of tuition to ~essentially~ force their children to do well in a selective test or afford the tuition of a private school if they're that desperate for their kids to study in their local area.


If it takes so much money to build a school in a, frankly, overcrowded area such as North Sydney, then why can't they build it somewhere nearby like Mosman or Neutral Bay? Honestly, even though there are other schools such as Manly Selective up north, Manly (from what I know and unless someone corrects me otherwise) is also catered for people who travel all the way from Monavale, Elanora, Avalon etc. I don't think there's another selective school that is better located for these students (who surprise, surprise, may also want to have a quality education in a selective school).


Furthermore, NSG is seriously midget. There is pretty much no space for whoever wants this to build new classrooms etc etc. If you want to cater some sort of feasible number of students to attend it (taking into account the inevitable population growth) you've got to implement at least a few more buildings. Then, if you think about it, you also need to implement the new teaching program for teachers (costly, no?) and I would say that all this effort could just amount to the government building another school (which would also be more ideal long-term).

If, by some reason, the mayor wants to do this the other (more stupid) way by kicking out half of NSG/ NSB so that local students enter then they're really just shoving the problem to some other area (who will no doubt soon suffer this predicament in the near future) whilst simultaneously also uprooting both school's reputation and/or culture. Reputation is actually pretty important, especially so for Selective schools. As its been mentioned above, a reputation is more or less, the deciding factor to which students or teachers are attracted to the school. (which is why certain groups are commonly stereotyped). And how are they going to single out the people to kick? Kick out the people who are not local students? imo, that's sort of semi-encouraging the idea of over-possessiveness/ territorial behaviour. I believe this can be somewhat referred to in history (albeit to a lesser extent) where instead of saying of "Go back to your own country!" we're saying "Go back to your own municipal area!".


Isn't it also making it more unfair to the students who will have to travel 1+hr to a selective school that is competitive enough for their liking? Sure, sure we're concerned about the local families' travel problems, but let's look at it from a NSG/B student's POV (despite it obviously being inferior in the Mayor's eyes). I know many students, me included, that simply chose to not attend Ruse because of the ridiculous amount of distance and time needed to travel to and from school each day, and I'm quite hesitant to agree that time is a viable excuse for a poorer quality education. There are currently (according to http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/types/shs_ahs_details.php) 17 fully selective, 25 partially selective and 4 agricultural schools available. To sum it up that's 46 selective schools available in Sydney/NSW. Sydney is 12,145km^2. That's what... 264km^2 for each selective school to cater for? (obviously there's other factors but you can do the math for these.) Take out one and jeebus, that km^2 just increases exponentially!

 

[unforlornedhope]

Yes, but I am one of few exceptions.
advanced engineering exists at USyd and afaik UNSW.
TSP opens the opportunities for extra research, and resume and contact building.
Maybe people like the extra research and would prefer to do some more in-depth work on something they're studying rather than just doing the menial work that they are made to do before they get to this research later.

That's just not true.
Who will mark your essays? Who will correct your teachers when they mark you based on their incorrect knowledge? And most of the worth-while services are costly. Should we restrict good education at a high school level to only those who can afford it?

That isn't drive to do well in yourself, or the drive to do as well as you can, it is simply making the best you can put of s shit situation, which ends less-we'll than A LOT of people from better situations (selective schools).
I'm not going to agree with that, being from a school with subpar English and (now) Mathematics (and maybe other) faculties I know from first-hand experience how bad teaching, task-setting and marking can effect students.

Some bad schools actually do have good teachers who care and are hsc markers. They also do have the resource, as to why they still perform poorly, it's because only a handful of people at the top care and utilise their teachers. The rest CBF, even if the teacher kindly offers extra lessons or essay marking services. You can't always blame the school, sometimes it's the CBF drop kicks themselves who are the f***cked up ones. Making the school therefore seem "bad".

 

[unforlornedhope]

Therefore if you want to play the blame game on saying that a school is bad, blame it on the drop kicks and those CBF retards in class who just don't care about studying- even if you shared your excellent and premium resources to them.

 

[Erinaceous]

If it takes so much money to build a school in a, frankly, overcrowded area such as North Sydney, then why can't they build it somewhere nearby like Mosman or Neutral Bay? Honestly, even though there are other schools such as Manly Selective up north, Manly (from what I know and unless someone corrects me otherwise) is also catered for people who travel all the way from Monavale, Elanora, Avalon etc. I don't think there's another selective school that is better located for these students (who surprise, surprise, may also want to have a quality education in a selective school).

Just to confirm as a manly selective student - we do. We have people from all over Sydney lol

 

[Erinaceous]

I agree. A school's only as good as it's students, not the teachers. I mean if you have a crappy teacher, then there's other ways in learning. Self studying and tutoring are but just a few options in which a student can take. Teachers have a responsibility to help their students to do well, but they don't have the responsibility to MAKE their students to do well. A.K.A if the student doesn't put in the efort, there's nothing much anyone, teachers, tutors, parents etc, can do, short of forcing the student to study.

Which leads me to say that combining selective schools especially who are in the top percentage like NSG and NSB is a horrible idea. According to my understanding, the HSC takes into account of everyone within the cohort of a particular school in a particular school year. I'm not sure about semi-selective schools, but the non-selective kids may be counted within the school cohort, which will then lower marks for students who are not ranked first, ultimately resulting in bringing the school's overall rank down even further especially when added to issues that have already been raised within this thread such as environment problems etc.