
I went to an elite private school for my whole life. It worked for me, so I sent my child to a similar school.
When we moved interstate with only a term’s notice, we couldn’t secure a place in the one school we wanted. I saw that as an opportunity to broaden our experience – and so chose to do a year in a public school.
Because by then, I had started to suspect everything I so strongly believed about private education wasn’t necessarily true.
This is what I’ve discovered:
The standard of education is the same.
This was the biggest surprise to me – that all of that money hadn’t purchased a ‘superior’ academic education – or even a different one. Which of course, is a fantastic comment on the Australian public school system.
In private schools, there’s an expectation that parents are paying for more access to teachers, and more input into their child’s learning. I immediately found the staff and teachers were just as committed and available in our new school. I cannot speak highly enough of how easy the school made our transition from interstate.
I had been told to expect a knowledge gap between public and private, but there’s been no gap.
The access to resources is vastly different.
At our old school, there were twelve ovals on the property. Here, there isn’t even one. The school uses public parks for sporting activities.
There’s no indoor heated Olympic-sized swimming pool in the new school. There’s barely a semblance of a music program. And there’s certainly no French lessons.