Going to a selective school (3 Viewers)

[Phanatical]

I remember that in Music back in high school, we were using old textbooks thrown away by Baulko. No matter how bad Baulko gets it, Girra is worse. No lecture hall like Ruse - we didn't (and still don't) even have a front gate.

 

[amandaz]

this is a question i have actually asked myself in the past yr...
im am 'naturally bright' (but very modest!) n when i sat the selective schools exam for yr7 i got in. but, i never had a tutor, didnt consider myself smart (i just made multiple choice answers patterns), n wanted to stay with my friends from primary school who were going to the local catholic school. i ended up going to the catholic school mainly b/c i thought i wouldnt be able to cope with the 'hard' stuff they taught at selective schools.

when i got to yr11 n 12 i did really well in terms of assessments n my ranks are good. for me, i think that being at a 'normal' school put less pressure on me to perform well, and the fact that i came first alot gave me renewed enthusiasm to keep trying.

but........i do question whether i could have performed well in a slective school, due to the acedemic environment, perhaps better teaching, n more resources. and maybe competition could have been beneficial. WHO KNOWS??

i think it depends upon the individual & their character.

 

[Casmira]

It varies for different people. I have some friends who are doing extremely well after they'd gotten into a selective high school this year. But some are just not coping, they suffer so much from the stress and their self esteem has really been beaten up.

The "Big Fish Little Pond effect" proposes that students, who possess above-average abilities, will encounter a decline in academic self-concept when they enter a school full of equally or more gifted peers. They compare their own abilities with more able peers, and so they develop a self concept that they are inept. With pressure, competition and external expectations (eg. from parents) adding on, they are likely to get poorer results than that they would get in a normal government school.

But for some people, going to a selective school will help them because a more competitive environment, and similarly gifted peers, will stimulate their intelligence and motivate them even more. I think it has to do with that student's personality and self concept - - but selective school really isn't for everyone. And it's not a guarantee for a great HSC.

i understood about 20% of that thanks to my extreme high marks in english (17/45!)

but on a serious note, this is true, some people only really try when something appears competitive, i myself dont apply myself at all in class especially IT which you know because its SO easy, but then when i apply myself for yearly it scored me 5thi n the year

the only subject that presents even a small challenge too me is english and chemistry, hell i find eng harder than chem, mainy because chem is so more logical, but english demoralises me, i work ahrd and dont go well, chemistry makes sense, i did a moderate amount of study, what i studied for i got 4/5, 14/15 etc. forr sections in the chem exam, where i didnt study/too lazy too didnt get me marks

english is just way up and down, you either flunk it horribly or destroy it, it makes no logic and i wish i could drop it

 

[girlanachronism]

it's untrue that the teachers at a selective school are generally better/more experienced. entry for the students is selective - it's not for the teachers, at least not any more so than transferring to any other school. i go to fort street and yeah, we have some fantabulous teachers and i feel really lucky to have them, but some are absolutely hopeless. i think one of the things is, because it's generally a more academic environment, teachers spend less time dealing with behavioural problems and thus more time actually teaching. my mum went from a 'disadvantaged' govt school to a selective school and she says it's a walk in the park, she laughs at teachers who complain about the students being badly behaved

 

[girlanachronism]

the other thing is, and this applies more in junior years where you're forced to take subjects... they assume that because you're there, you're smart and thus being unable to do something means you're just not trying. this really wasn't the case for me with maths; although i had a couple of topics that i got my head around, for the most part, i genuinely struggled with the maths course. i didn't get into the school for my maths skills, i'm going to say i got in for my skills in english, but i found in jr years that if i struggled with a maths/science related class, it was assumed i just wasn't trying.

which, ok, i often wasn't, but that doesn't change the fact that many of them make the false assumption that brightness in one area = genius in all areas.

 

[7th Sign]

hmm their was this kid call jason or sumfin that came to our school from like china in year 9 and he was like crazzzzy got like 100% in every test......he moved to a selective school at the end of year 9 i think he will dominate the selective school because some people that go to them arnt that smart they are just tutored to much.....

 

[Phanatical]

The lower-performing selective schools (ie, NOT Ruse, Baulko) are the best ones. They take the best of the whole academic excellence thing, but it's not so competitive. At schools like Girraween, you also learn how to be a good Person, since you're working With your classmates for the best marks, not working Against them. Sure, the averages aren't as high, but who cares? Marks aren't everything.

My favourite example was when my year competed against James Ruse in a men's volleyball game. James Ruse did all their girly warmups, running around the court and acting like a professional team. Girra just sat around, had a few laughs, then proceeded to slaughter the bigger and stronger JR team. Final score 36 to 8 Girra, because while the JR team were bigger and stronger, they were all competing against each other to be the dominant player of the game, while the Girra team were working as a team for the collective good. Moral of the story? It's no use being the best at something, if you can't work with other people. Employers look for team players, not academically brilliant people, and JR are definitely lacking in that area.

 

[glycerine]

yeah i agree

and there's this concept of " a 75 in a selective would be a 90 elsewhere" which isn't necessarily trusm especially stuff like maths where it isnt subjective and there is a right or wrong answer...
and there's also this assumption that because you did well in one assessment and you did ok in teh rest you'll be fine

for example, i got 96 in modern yr 11...but bombed out first few assessments in yr 12 and was sitting on 80 at best, and even though this is an ok mark, i really really wanted to be back up to the 90's...but because i am "smart" because i did well before, i was told not to worry and i'd be fine, and meanwhile, was n ot given the help i asked for and kept going pretty badly until trials when i fluked a good mark...

so i m ean, at the same time, if you want to do well and get 90's and your'average' for a selective school student, you get less help than the top or bottom students and thus you rpotential or whatever isnt really achieved whereas if you were at a non-selective school, you might have been top of the class and as a result gotten more assistance and "attention".

haha this reminds me about last night, i had a nightmare where i logged on to get my results and i got 40/50 in 3u english

 

[Generator]

Easy going selective highs... Do they still exist? I know that my grade (long ago at the 'mighty' Penrith High) was basically the final year to be taught on an 'it's your life, not mine' basis. It was great.

 

[velox]

Yep - Manly High

 

[Bambul]

I went to Ruse. I'll try to answer the original question with the stats that I know.

Traditionally the new students in year 11 did better than the oldies. They had to compete for only 30 places towards the end of high school, something that the other students did not have to do. As a result they tended to be better than the average student already there. I seem to remember the median UAIs being about 99.3 for all students and 99.5 for the new ones.

I do think that selective schools get better teachers. There is no such thing as a points system for employing teachers, they just apply to a school and the principal interviews them. Then he/she decides whether or not to employ them. Teachers tend to prefer to teach at selective schools (for various reasons) so they get the pick of the crop. What is a fact is the difficulty in dismissing a teacher (for state schools), so if the school has a lot of bad teachers to start off with you just have to wait until they go to another school or retire. That may be the reason why some people have complained about their teachers (e.g. Baulko only became selective in about 1990 so it would still have a few pre-selective teachers).

When I was in year 12 you only needed a 60 in maths to be a 90 elsewhere. 75 would have been impossible to get!

 

[haejin]

I remember that in Music back in high school, we were using old textbooks thrown away by Baulko. No matter how bad Baulko gets it, Girra is worse. No lecture hall like Ruse - we didn't (and still don't) even have a front gate.

You go to Girra?
Are you in my grade?

 

[haejin]

You go to Girra?
Are you in my grade?

Okay, scratch that, you were in Anne's and Fankensteins class

 

[Phanatical]

Class of 2002. We're the ones who waterbombed the rest of the school on our muckup day.

 

[Phanatical]

at job interviews and uni scholarship interviews etc, teamwork and personality and communication etc are sopme of the first things people always mention about our school (baulko)

What, the lack of it? We once had someone transfer to Girra, and who spent his entire two weeks trying to get the hell out, to Baulko or Ruse. He was a rude, but academically brilliant individual who ended up getting his transfer to Baulko, where he found many Other rude individuals like himself.

A number of my former classmates transferred out to Baulko. They became uncommunicative, even dismissive of their Girra classmates, adopting the self-superior attitude common to Baulko students around Girra students.

and our school IS all rounded - our school does extremely well in sport and music and arts and drama and all sorts of things....

Sports and Arts achievements mean nothing if all the school and its students are interested in is winning yet another award or whatever. At Girra, we did things because we loved them. For example, 2/3rds of the Music 2/Ext class in my year went on to do the BMus, despite having better offers, because we loved music.

just coz the school's really 'smart' doesnt you're not as much of a "good person" as you put it, as someone at girrween or another school....

James Ruse is NOT a good school, because the people who come out of it are stuck-up, self-righteous pricks who fit better with the Private school system than with the other public schools. No offense, but I know people who have left James Ruse FOR Girraween for this exact reason.

and also - bullshit employers dont look at academics! if that was the case, any bum of the street who came across as a nice guy could get a job when everyone knows this isnt the case....

employers first look to see if you have the experience/qualificatiosn etc that they need to fit the position and then look at personality etc

I never said that employers don't look at academics. But people can't rely on just academia to find work. They also need to have people skills, and a lot of the "smarter" people in the HSC don't fit that criteria. Of course there are those who are both academically brilliant and socially adept. But these are rare.

Seriously get over it. Girraween's a good school, so's baulko, so's ruse.....all these schools have good people in them and just coz a school does much better academically doesnt mean they're all a bunch of nerds. Geez take look at my grade and you'll see that isnt the case.

Each school has their positives and negatives. If you want to learn to be a good person, go to Girraween. If you want to be an essay memorising regurgitator of knowledge, go to Baulko or Ruse.

 

[Xayma]

James Ruse is NOT a good school, because the people who come out of it are stuck-up, self-righteous pricks who fit better with the Private school system than with the other public schools. No offense, but I know people who have left James Ruse FOR Girraween for this exact reason.

Each school has their positives and negatives. If you want to learn to be a good person, go to Girraween. If you want to be an essay memorising regurgitator of knowledge, go to Baulko or Ruse.

You just love to generalise don't you. I could say those same things about my school vs Girraween.

 

[lala2]

What were your individual reasons for going to the selective school you did, and what year did you enter that selective school? Everyone has their choices, Girra I heard performs really well considering it's not as high up there as JR or Baulko , and of course the classic JR and Baulko--they've got their strengths and weaknesses, some people from my school transferred to JR in later years and some were happy, and some were not so happy, so yeah...it all depends on the person and what environment they'd fit into best.

 

[blackfriday]

i go to a hole in the ground otherwise known as normo. our tests at times are impossible (in ext 1 maths yearly only like 25 ppl passed out of 70-odd) and really smart kids are made to feel like absoulte retards. so people that are smarter than every other idiot in the state are told they are going to be nobody and end up lining up in a centrelink queue. is that healthy now?

 

[velox]

Ummm JR is public. JR ppl dont belong in private. They dont need to polute the system, there's enough dickheads already.

Phanatical : you can be a good person at any school. I dont think Giraween makes you a good person more so than James Ruse.

Why do we seem to have this debate all the time? In the end its your choice, and live with it.

 

[.::icemeLon::.]

this debate is actualli pwetti useless in a wai...
everione has different opinions on whether selective skOoL or just normaL public skOoLz are betta..
parents esp. will recommend selective skOoLz.. because in their mind.. it'z like "one foot in uni"
but wah is the point of comin last in a selective skOoL when u can come first in a normaL skOoL... isn't ur rank realli a major consideration for ur UAI..
it all comes down to personal values..
and whether or not u like the environment of the skOoL^-^