Chapter 1 of my daughter's school

When we get to study in another country we also get exposure to different system. In this small post, I am going to share on my observation on the Queensland education system from what I have observed. I am not reading or putting in any extra effort to find out more rather just jotting down my own observation as I send my daughter to school every day.

The first step to school always begins with admission. Initially I went to seek admission in a different school which seem little closer to our place than my daughter’s current school owing to a huge traffic we have in between our house and the latter. However, it is not how it works here. We fall under her current School’s area and that is it. We do not have to request for the seat or we do not have to say which standard our child sits in. System is there and it’s crystal clear. Any school going kid should get admission in the school falling under the suburb you live in known as catchment area. A child is put in the standard as per their age. Meaning classmates are same age divided by months.

Different school is headed by Principal and Deputy Principal and seem to be operating independently of other schools. They seem to have autonomy of how they run the school. State School is free of cost for their own citizens, however, international nationals are supposed to pay some reasonable fees cheaper than private childcare equivalent $250 per week. (Still expensive for us though)

Although school is free, except for salary of teachers, it seems that school is run mostly on donation and volunteer basis. Over course of 6 months, I have observed that they collect number of donations in small amount to do certain things. They ask students to buy stationery and keep in class to use as pool. Fete day is biggest event run without any fund but with so much income for the school and fun for children and parents alike. They collect donation in form of kind- volunteers, clothes, books, toys, water, juice, wine etc. On the fete day, they sell these free items on cheap rate by the volunteers and volunteers coordinate various activities such as face painting, makerspace, cooking and all earning goes to school budget.

The school has canteen called Tuckshop which caters to children’s lunches on alternate days at extremely reasonable rate. Alternate days, yes, the canteen is open only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - to encourage home cooked food and same time alternative for busy parents. Cheap food from canteen is made possible through parent volunteers who run the canteen. The money is just to buy stock and don’t pay for labour. So canteen becomes affordable for any family.

Finally, PREP has break 1 and break 2, one around 10:30am and one at 1pm. After the midterm break, there was only lunch break in preparation for their transition to class 1. PREP Teachers are that trained, even after first term, teachers are still cracking jokes with every single kid and their siblings. After first term, school Principal sends us our child’s performance report. Report has no numbers in it. Your child is not judged by the one hour exam but whole time’s performance in class transcribed into 2-3 pages story of how is your child,with their strengths and weaknesses. This clearly shows, we can notice the progress made by our child in process. I also heard that there is no exam until certain level up. (To be continued…)

Her first day to School