The school is too big!

One of our local high schools has more than 2,200 students enrolled. Another has more than 1,500. There are waiting lists for both schools. Families living inside the catchment areas know that even if a child has a sibling at the school the second or third child may not be able to attend it.

The first school has the added attraction of being a school which offers the International Baccalaureate as well as the local exams. The second school is one of the oldest government schools in the state - my mother and then my brother attended it - and had a reputation for high academic success rates.  

The first school has a large number of students from Asia. They are from families who may not be able to afford private boarding school fees for their children. Their children live with families, often families who have children of their own at the school. These students do pay tuition fees but they are generally less than those paid to private schools. 

Both schools have facilities or programs some schools do not have. One of the boys next door is in the accelerated Maths program at the second school. It is in fact how he managed to get a place at the school.  

But questions are now being raised about these schools, in particular the size of these schools. I started "high school" in an area school. "Area" meant just that. It was spread across a wide rural community. Most of the students came on the big yellow school buses. In this case the Senior Cat was the headmaster. It was his role to move the school from being a primary school to an area school with a secondary section. There were fourteen of us in the first year of the secondary section. It was a new venture with new teachers.

The teachers also had to teach in the primary section of the school. We had no subject choices. My parents decided I needed to learn Latin. That meant doing it as an extra subject. The Senior Cat gave me the text book "An intermediate Latin grammar" and told me what to learn. When he had time he would test me - often at the meal table. (It is not the best way to learn Latin.) 

When the Senior Cat was moved to yet another school to sort out the problems there it was much the same. (He was the Education Department's "trouble shooter" - sent to schools to sort them out before being moved on.) There were more students but still only about one hundred and fifty altogether in the secondary school. There were still no subject choices. Everyone did the same thing. 

These big high schools are different.The first two years there is not much choice but after that there are, within limits, subject choices. How much choice students really have is something I question. Students are "encouraged" to do maths, science and technology. The arts subjects are not as highly regarded. They are not seen as "needed" in the way maths and science is. While it may not be openly stated in the information literature the idea is that all students should be aiming to enter university.

These schools do not encourage subjects like woodwork, metalwork, cookery, art and the like. Those are subjects which are seen as best left to the least able.

Add that to the size of these schools and there will be problems. I know too many students who are getting lost despite the best efforts of their teachers. It is impossible to monitor behaviour outside the classroom so some of them are being bullied. They are not achieving as much as they could. Their teachers barely know each other, let alone the students they are supposed to be teaching.

In that first small area school there were almost no facilities - although we did have a small "laboratory" which doubled as an art room. We had no specialist programs but anyone falling behind was always given extra help. Everyone took part in sport because everyone was needed to make up team numbers. Even I was told to "stand there and throw the ball to... and then get off the court/field/pitch before you get knocked over". (My job after that was to score or even, on occasion, umpire.) 

 Yet these very big schools are supposed to have "facilities" and "specialist programs" and all sorts of opportunities. The best are taken for sports teams but too many never really participate in anything. 

I was talking to K... recently. She is about to start at the 2,200 school next year. Until recently she was looking forward to it. She thought it was going to be "fun". K...has grown up a lot this year - something sadly necessary due to having a very ill parent. Now K... is much less sure about high school. 

"I think it is too big Cat. It might be all right but in primary school we all know each other and our teachers know us. That helps a lot."

K... is motivated and, in some ways, mature but she is feeling anxious. There is not much I cam say to reassure her because I think she is right. Those schools are too big.