Primary School Confidential

by Woog

  ‘He just could not get away from the office, so I thought screw you: I’m taking the kids to Fiji for Easter.’

  ‘So, where are you sending your boys to high school?’

  Punch me in the face.

  But I wasn’t always so blasé on the subject of my sons’ future schooling. When I was pregnant with my first son, my panic button got stuck and I was concerned about everything! So I projected my anxiety forward by . . . let’s say twelve years . . . and I filled out a form to put our son on the waiting list for a fancy private school. Mr Woog begrudgingly attached a cheque to this form ten minutes after his birth and sent it off.

  Then we waited, like we had paid to do. Paid, to be on a waiting list. In hindsight, what the fuck?

  Another son came along a few years later. Again, we filled out the form, attached the cheque. Posted it.

  And waited.

  And then forgot about it.

  A few years later, I was starting to wonder about my investment. Especially when my good friend Mrs Finlay received a confirmation letter for her son, who was a year younger than my youngest.

  I called the bursar of the fancy educational establishment on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. The conversation went a little something like this:

  ‘Hi, Mrs Bursar. My name is Mrs Woog. I’m just following up on the application forms I sent in for my two kids a few years ago.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  The information was given. I was a bit frightened at this point, and was trying to be very civil and agreeable.

  ‘We sent in our waiting-list application and fee within a week of their birth and I have not heard anything since, so I thought I’d just give you a buzz and see how the whole process is coming along. I’m so sorry to bother you; I know you must get hounded all the time. But you see—’

  ‘Mrs Woog, we give preference to the sons of old boys and beneficiaries. I am looking at your file now and I can see that your family is neither. I’m sorry to say it’s unlikely we will be offering your sons a place here.’

  I will not go into detail regarding the ensuing exchange, but if I say ‘you can stick your waiting list’ and ‘arse’ and ‘fascist factory’, you’ll probably get my drift.

  As we then acknowledged our differences during our farewells, I could distinctly hear in the background the big red pen go through our names on that bloody waiting list. I can only assume that this school was perfectly happy to take my non-refundable application fee of $800 in the full knowledge that my kids had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever donning their straw boater.

  You must admit, this is pretty bad form.

  But fate works in mysterious ways, I do believe, for not long after this I heard that the offending school had sent home letters with their students, begging the mothers of these boys not to wear gym clothes when dropping off their sons at school. What the hell? No one will tell me to take off my stretchy pants!

  There are many misconceptions about private school education. One is that the students are all born with silver spoons in their mouths. The truth is, however, that many parents make huge sacrifices in order to pay the fees for six years of high school education at a private school, which may add up to as much as $180,000. In many cases, both parents will work two jobs to make sure that the bill gets paid (and, let me add, that $180,000 doesn’t include the $450 you’re up for each time your kid needs a new blazer).

  You could say that the whole issue of public versus private comes down to a question of choice, but let’s be honest: most people do not have that luxury. And does it really matter? There’s a general belief that a private school education will open doors to you for the rest of your life. This might have been true even as recently as a generation ago, but the world is different now, and employers are far more focused on actual skills than on the old-boy school tie.

  I will never forget talking with a career counsellor in my final year of wagging school. She actually told me that if I was competing for a job and it came down to a choice between me and another candidate, and my competitor had attended a public school, the fact that I had attended a private school would tip me into the job.

  I remember being faintly horrified at this assumption of entitlement; it has left a revolting taste in my mouth to this day. At the time, it seemed that society really believed that if you attended a private school, you were a better person. A superior person. And one of the things I noticed after graduation was that these students then tended to stick together throughout the rest of their lives.

  A lot of private school students never really break free from their social circle. They go to university together. They marry people who are from a similar background. They are each other’s best men and bridesmaids and they end up back in the suburb that they themselves grew up in. Naturally, their children go to the same school they went to. And so the cycle continues. There is, however, a comfort in the familiar. Private schools certainly have the community spirit to their advantage, as well as time-honoured traditions.

  PRIVATE OR PUBLIC?

  I asked parents from across the country why they chose public or private schools for their kids, and here is what a few of them had to say:

  My daughter goes to a private school—and it’s primarily due to the extra support she receives. As a child on the autistic spectrum, she would be an unfunded, unsupported student at the local public school; however, she’s supported 100 per cent of the time with an aide at the school she’s at. There are smaller classes and a very flexible, personalised curriculum which is tailored to highlight her strengths and provide extra support for the areas she finds challenging also helped sway us. Best decision we ever made.

  My kids struggled at state school; they hated school and didn’t do well. We moved them to a private school three years ago and they are thriving. My son—who I’d always said would never be academic (he is a natural sportsman) and did really badly through to end of Year 5 in public system—is now in Year 8 and loves school. He loves learning and has improved to being a high C, low B student (even a couple of As. WHAT?!?!). He can’t wait to go to uni! I hate paying the fees and, yes, it is a struggle, but the results for us have been worth it. I feel like their future is a bit brighter because they are gaining more from their education.

  Mine are all private-school educated, although my husband and I were public-school kids. Our main reason initially was related to access to an excellent music department and the strong academic focus in the school they attend. The local public schools don’t have the same track record. Fortunately, it’s been an excellent choice for all three kids.

  I liked the uniform . . .

  My girls go to a private Jewish school because I want them to learn about their culture. It’s a gorgeous school and they’re very happy there. I am extremely grateful to have that choice.

  We’ve sent our boys to private school (since kindergarten) because of the small class sizes, additional teachers in the classroom most of the time, and specialist teachers for music, art and science. There are free periods for class teachers to be in contact with parents via face to face or email, regular individual support for academics if required, in addition to the fact that phone calls and emails to teacher are responded to before the end of the day.

  We’ve done both. We’ve been to three different schools in five years due to moving house. School quality comes down to the leadership team. You get that right, and the rest follows, public or private.

  While everyone has a different opinion, mine go public and I wouldn’t ever consider private school. But I can say that because our local zoned high school is a cracker. But the most important thing for your kid—in my view and it’s supported by loads of research—is having engaged parents in your education. None of the extracurricular activities and nice lawns provided by private schools will matter if your kid turns into an entitled pain in the whatsit. And for those who go private because their kids have a special need, this is completely why Gonski should be supported 100 per c
ent—so there is needs-based funding. Not everyone has the ways and means for this support but I totally get why, if you can afford it, that you’d do it.

  The truth is that there’s no such thing as a perfect educational system. Private schools and public schools—they both have their drawbacks and benefits. Let’s just be grateful that there is a system for everyone.

  But then again . . . what about those homeschool weirdoes? Shall we discuss them while we’re at it?

  YOU DO WHAT? LET’S CHAT TO A HOMESCHOOLER

  Homeschooling. It is when you shun the traditional place of education, roll up your sleeves and get on with the job yourself. In Australia just decades ago it was only the deeply religious who homeschooled their young.

  These days, it is become much more mainstream.

  I want you to meet my friend Shae. Shae believes in feminism, real food, home education, kids with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, radical homemaking, travel with kids, body positivity, connected parenting, homebirth and art. She is also one of the coolest mammas I know.

  Sure, she drinks kombucha, but more often than not it is flavoured with vodka.

  So, we got chatting . . .

  Why did you decide that homeschooling was for your kids?

  We had always planned to send our kids to a non-traditional type of school because we are not a good fit for public, mainstream school. I knew that I’d be THAT mother down at the office arguing over why we were not going to make our child do homework or why we didn’t need permission from the school to take our kids out to go camping or why I couldn’t get my seven-year-old out of gumboots.

  And I was pretty sure I’d fail at five whole days in a row of clean school uniform. We had looked into Steiner and were put off by the hardcore rules.

  We are a pretty laid-back kind of family. The kids have always slept without ‘training’ and our form of discipline didn’t involve sticker charts and punishments. This meant we weren’t keen to change our way of parenting when the kids turned five to include a lot of rules and restrictions about things we didn’t necessarily agree with.

  Through other hippy-la-la type groups we knew a couple of other families that had chosen not to send their kids to school. The kids were awesome and were always off doing cool and interesting things with lots of other families. The flexibility and amount of time the kids had to play and explore their interests was really appealing.

  As was the idea of not needing to be somewhere five days a week at BOTH 9 am and 3 pm.

  The year my firstborn was supposed to start four-year-old kinder was also the year I gave birth to my third child. So I had a newborn, a twenty-month-old and a just-turned four-year-old and I was barely able to have a shower. I was not interested in changing the routine we had that already included lots of great stuff and, surprisingly to some, lots of other people.

  So we opted out of kinder and, as the year wore on, I could see how what we were doing was working for everyone. So we decided to opt out of prep and see how it went.

  It was a success and now the more years we are out of the school system with our three kids, the less appealing that system is.

  My kids have been able to learn on their own schedule, about things that interest them, in a way that suits their learning style. They can jump years ahead or be behind their peers and it doesn’t matter. We go on excursions, camps, park meet-ups, and play dates. We have heaps of time for extracurricular activities, classes or tutoring.

  And not a school run in sight.

  It’s not for everyone, but it really works for us.

  What are some of the common misconceptions people make about homeschooling?

  That all the kids are weird, gifted, wild, like Laura from Little House on the Prairie, and all the adults are religious, rich, hippies or like Caroline from Little House on the Prairie. The reality is that homeschooled families are as likely to be religious as they are atheist, and you can meet as many Lukes as you do Phoenixes.

  There are rich, working-class and single-parent families. Some replicate school at home and some unschool. Homeschooling is a great option for gifted and special needs kids, and lots of families also choose it for their perfectly ordinary or not academic kids too. The home education community in Australia is a diverse melting pot with a bit of everything.

  Despite people often asking me this when we are out in social situations, the most common misconception is that homeschooled kids are missing out socially. School is one way to socialise (even though every teacher I ever had told me I was NOT there to do that), but not the only way.

  Do you ever think your kid is going to suddenly lose the ability to talk to their peers over the school holidays because there is no school? No. You take them out; you catch up with friends. And with the number of home-educated kids on the rise it’s only getting easier.

  What does a typical day look like for you and your kids?

  We all wake up at different times and like a slow start. I don’t answer any questions until after my cup of tea at around 8.30 am.

  If it’s a day at home with no plans, the computers or devices or the TV usually get a red-hot go until about 10 am. We just take the rest of the day as it comes. Before lunch the kids might make some art or work on their project books, we might hit the library or go to the park.

  I keep a mental list of subjects the kids are interested or currently immersed in and I might show them a documentary or YouTube video, or read and explain something about or from a reference book, or we might do an experiment or go on an excursion. If the kids are working on something that requires a lot of practice, then we aim to do this in the morning.

  After lunch the kids mostly play.

  Sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s outside, and often it’s loud and includes arguments. Now that the kids are older, I am usually only needed to help get stuff down from high places, answer questions, and tie up Monster High hair, so I usually do my own stuff all arvo (read my Kindle and look at Pinterest), as well as catching up on housework and cooking dinner.

  Hubs arrives home at about 6 pm and after dinner we might play card or board games or watch TV or a movie. That’s a cruisey day without activities though. My kids all do dancing, one does swimming, and the other two do drama. We also go to one or two home education park meet-ups a week, as well as various play dates and day trips or excursions around the place.

  The ‘homeschool’ stuff just fits in around the activities and general life. Learning happens all the time.

  What are some of the disadvantages to homeschooling?

  That anytime your child is anything less than extraordinary, perfectly behaved, blissfully joyous and completely outgoing then someone will always tell you to send them to school to ‘fix’ your problem. Kids can be sobbing every morning at school drop-off or needing to see a psychologist because of bullying and parents are told that ‘school is tough’, but have one shitty homeschooling day and it’s like you brought it on yourself. It’s also incredibly frustrating for kids to feel like they have to be on their best behaviour at all times or be judged. I think my kids are amazing, but they shouldn’t be held up to a higher standard.

  For me, the driving around is a big one. School is usually local and comes with a local posse of kids and families that become part of your ‘tribe’. The homeschool community can be a bit far-flung so your kids might end up chumming up with not-so-local friends. The excursions are also not a matter of signing a form and the kids being bussed from said local school. We drive to stuff that’s interesting and sometimes, if there is a lot on, it can mean many hours in the car.

  Does homeschooling ever drive you to drink? How do you manage all that together time?

  The bits that drive me to drink are pretty much the same as for a lot of school parents: fighting kids, grocery shopping, the backseat of my car being like a garbage dump.

  We’re all not so different really.

  There are lots of ways to home-educate your kids but I think the one that pops into
most people’s minds is the model of ‘school at home’; for example, a parent sitting at a table with their kids for five or so hours a day, trying to get them to do worksheets and memorise times tables. Then after the schoolwork is finished the kids don’t know how to spend their time unless an adult (the homeschooling parent) is telling them what to do and is constantly involved in all their activities.

  The truth is that parents who follow full curriculum only need to do a couple to a few hours of bookwork a day, and most do less than that. Once kids are competent readers then they can be set up with projects and workbooks, needing only small amounts of parental involvement here and there. Many homeschooling families (like ours) take a much more laid-back approach and it is mostly driven by the kids themselves, with help where needed.

  I understand that people think that the learning part is full-on, hands-on hours and hours a day—but it really isn’t like that. Although I have been needed to explain things like the difference between continents and cities and countries first thing in the morning or the solar system last thing at night. That CAN be exhausting.

  As far as together time, that is less intense than you might think as well. I’m sure people think it’s lots of I’M BORED and being asked to play dinosaurs or hearing about Minecraft all day long (okay, you will actually hear A LOT about Minecraft) but, for me, it’s tapered off as the kids have gotten older. One of the great things about opting out of school is opting out of kids being kept busy all the time.

  Free time makes them resourceful, happy to potter around and amuse themselves. I can go actual hours without any of my children wanting me to be involved in a thing. Of course the flipside is that some days are really intense and everyone wants me to watch, help out, answer questions, mediate, etc., all while I really need to go shopping and no one wants to go. But it seems to balance itself out.

  I personally have a local mother-in-law who takes the kids for school hours one day a week. I know families who use nannies or child care so they have a bit of kid-free time or an opportunity to get a haircut without taking four kids along.