Our experience with High School selection

Our eldest is in year 6 and we’ve had to finalise our school selection for next year this term. It’s been a hot topic of conversation with parents and I thought I’d walk through our decision-making process to help other families taking this step in the next few years.

We actually began thinking about high schools about 3 years ago. At the time we were living in a house that was undoubtedly going to be too small for 4 teenagers and in an area with families we loved but that wasn’t as beautiful and connected to nature as we wanted. Knowing that we were going to move (and only really wanting to move schools this one time) we studied out the suburbs we thought were options and began looking at viable high schools.

Even at that stage we weren’t really looking at independent schools. At the time I read a book called Free Schools by David Gillespie, a Brisbane-based writer who had gone through the process of choosing schools for his six children. He investigated the statistic and trends regarding outcomes for children based on the different schools they went to, private, public, single-sex, co-ed etc. His conclusion was that the most important indicator of a child’s academic success was the abilities of the teacher in the classroom, which is decided on by the principal of the school.

He also prompted us to consider the cost of private or independent education and to weigh that against the opportunity costs of using that money for tuition rather than other experiences. We recognised that with 4 children across 7 years of school we would have children in high school for 12 years, 4 years with 1 child, 4 years with 2 children, and 4 years with 3 children. If we decided on a private school we’d have a cash flow problem. While a Catholic school would be more financially realistic, I had hoped that all my kids would attend high school together and there were limited options for co-ed Catholic schools.

By choosing a less costly public education we also give ourselves a level of economic freedom. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on tuition, we might feel freer to educate our children outside of school through holidays and other experiences.

When we were looking to move we looked at what area would move into which would give us options for public high schools. We looked at academic results, as those are the statistics most readily available. We could find no available metric for student wellbeing, levels of bullying, or social cohesion of schools. We visited a few schools to try to pick up on the vibe of the staff and the expectations of students.

We decided to move into an area that fell under the catchment of one of the top-performing public schools in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, knowing that when the time came to choose, there were other options nearby.

As I mentioned one of my top goals was that we could find a school that all my children could attend. with four kids who have a variety of interests and activities, I was aware that I needed to plan for ways to simplify our lives and the mental load that would be mine, and having one primary school and one high school was enough for me to keep a track of. Plus it meant the kids would know each other’s friends and have similar expectations of them at school in terms of effort, uniform, and involvement.

Another top consideration was that it was convenient for the kids to get to on their own. While my husband had grown up using a school bus, my siblings and I walked to our local school. I felt it fostered a sense of independence as well as community cohesion. You knew lots of kids in the neighborhood and their families. But most of all I wanted to avoid having my kids ride a school bus. I had heard stories about bullying and other anti-social behaviour from unsupervised teens on school buses. With every child now having a device in their pocket with access to heaven knows what, I was really worried, and determined that my kids not be in those situations (either as perpetrators or victims). By keeping my kids off a school bus I was also mindful that I would be gifting them time; hours every week to work on their own interests, hobbies, and activities or even a part-time job.

I also really like that many kids from our primary school will be attending the local high school we’ve chosen. I have heard anecdotally that it is difficult to get to know other families at high school. Parents are less present at the school and there are fewer social opportunities. I am thrilled that I’ll already know a few neighbourhood families at our high school so that when my kids tell me that are going out with friends I’ll hopefully know who they are.

I don’t believe that it is possible to find the perfect school, each will have benefits and drawbacks. Each family has to make the call for themselves, and maybe if you have a child with special needs you do have to be extremely selective. I have firmly believed that during primary school, a switched on, attentive, intentional parent can make up for deficiencies in a school. In a high school, this is probably less true. However, by making sure my kids have interests, events, friends, and activities that are separate from school, my hope is that they will see that school is not the be-all and end-all of life. That there is so much more out there in the world than exams, ATARS, and popularity.