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Back to School

2/7/2019

10 Comments

 
Picture
My daughter headed back to school this week, and shopping for school supplies really highlighted the many differences in how we talk about schools in Australia versus the United States.

If my daughter were starting tenth grade in the States, we’d be shopping from a tenth-grade school supply list. Here we used a Year 10 List of Requirements. In Australia, students are in different years rather than grades. And there are no references to freshman, sophomores, or juniors, although there are seniors. However, that term refers to students in Years 11 and 12. Also, my daughter doesn’t attend high school but rather secondary school.

Schools here are referred to as either primary or secondary. (The terms junior school and senior school are sometimes used as well.) Primary schools serve students from age five to around eleven or twelve, while students aged thirteen to around seventeen attend secondary school. There are no middle schools. Sometimes a secondary school is a college, which means it serves Years 11 and 12 only. After secondary school, students may attend university, or uni.

Here are some of the items from the requirements list:

  • Binder book: This is a bound book of lined loose-leaf notebook pages. It is not spiral bound but drilled with holes to fit in a binder. They look more like our composition books. Similar products are called exercise books, which also contain lined notebook pages, but they are not drilled.
  • Grid book: Like exercise books, these are bound, but they are filled with graph paper. We’d probably call them a graph paper notebook.
  • Document wallet: Like a file envelope for us.
  • Diary: Her old school in the States called this an agenda; it’s a daily planner.
By the way, all these products are Size A4, which measures 210 mm × 297 mm (8.27 in × 11.7 in). It is the most commonly available paper size in most of the world’s countries (except for the United States and Canada).
 
You might also find yourself buying rubbers at Officeworks, which are what Australians sometimes call erasers.

School started in late summer here and we’ll soon be entering autumn, not fall. The first day at my daughter’s school was the fifth of February, which would be written here as 05/02/2019, putting the day before the month.

Her first stop that day was tutor group, which is loosely equivalent to our homeroom. In her school, however, the tutor plays a much more significant role than does a homeroom teacher. We have no real equivalent in the United States to what Australians mean by a tutor in the school. This person is kind of a combined teacher, mentor, and advocate.

The school subjects are much the same, except that my daughter takes Maths, not Math. Her assignments, tasks, and tests are part of her assessment. She is accessed with marks rather than grades.

At lunchtime, she goes to her school’s canteen instead of a cafeteria.  Students purchase the food and leave with it, to eat somewhere else on the campus.

I’ve always enjoyed school shopping, particularly the ads. This ad from several years ago was one of my favorites back in the States. This one is an Australian example. Comparing the two led me to conclude that Australians are much nicer people.
10 Comments
Diane
2/8/2019 03:34:39 pm

What do you think the main objectives for Australian schools versus USA schools?

Reply
Rose
2/9/2019 07:34:23 pm

I can only speak to our daughter’s school now and how it compared to her previous one in the States. Her school now says its goal is to create independent lifelong learners but it’s competitive and starting to become more and more focused on grades and scores to get into the best universities. Her school back in the States was even more competitive and totally focused on test scores. So I don’t know — comparing those two, there’s not much difference.

Reply
Ed Reniker
2/8/2019 03:39:54 pm

Only one comment is appropriate: LOL. I loved the information but the comparative ads at the end were priceless.

Reply
Rose
2/9/2019 07:35:32 pm

I’m glad you enjoyed the two ads. Me too! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

Reply
bob
2/8/2019 04:43:00 pm

I am curious How many students are typically in each class? Are schools free? Books? Transportation? Are there testing requirements to advance? (Regents). Is college free and if not typical cost.

I wonder if other nations have accomplished the free educational platform. Also if they have religious schools are they free?

Thanks for making me think about these things.

Reply
Rose
2/9/2019 08:04:29 pm

Hello, Bob. Those are some great questions! I really only have experience with my daughter’s school, which is a private school. Much like in the States, Australia has public and private schools. Public schools are free to Australians with permanent residency. Students attend the school that serves their community. If you live outside the community, or like us are temporary residents, then you pay a fee to attend public school. Religious schools also charge tuition. At my daughter’s school, books are covered by the tuition. Entrance depends more on the wait list; while the school wanted to see a transcript, there was no entrance exam. “School” buses are actually public transit buses with dedicated school routes, but there is no guarantee that there’s a school bus route that runs from where you live to the school. For instance, while there’s an afternoon school bus for my daughter, there’s no morning route. She would have to take a public transit bus in the morning and make at least one connection. Neither the dedicated school buses nor the public buses are free. University is not free here nor is it a bargain for overseas students. On average, international students will pay around $30,840 USD in tuition, plus an additional $14,600 USD for living expenses. Australian students have those same living expenses, but their tuition on average is $5000 to 8000 USD, depending on what they’re studying. Thanks for all the questions!

Reply
Bob
2/10/2019 06:54:23 am

Thanks for the info Rose. My goddaughter once answered my question of who she will vote for with "whoever will pay for my college" and I think a lot of young people would agree with her. If Australia was offering free college, I would then have to find out how.

Thanks for all your blogs.

Rose
2/11/2019 03:07:18 pm

Bob, I'm so glad you're enjoying the blogs. I agree with your goddaughter. The tricky thing is that the countries that do provide free or vastly reduced tuition normally require you to be a citizen or permanent resident. The fee for overseas students is always much higher. Thanks again for reading and commenting.

Bob
2/11/2019 03:37:43 pm

I hope you submit some of your articles to different magazines/publishers. Readers digest use to pay for articles they published. Since you are doing this anyway and they are good, informative and well written they may publish them

Reply
Rose
2/13/2019 12:15:07 pm

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bob. I keep thinking that I need to devote some time to that.

Reply



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    Rose Ciccarelli is an American writer and editor living in Canberra, Australia.

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