Other Factors

There are a range of other factors: transition from primary to secondary, pastoral care, spiritual and Emotional growth, RE, Leadership, support for slow learners, anti-bullying policy, etc. It is difficult to get much of this information via web sites, so questioning on School tours, or directly to School leaders will be necessary.

Transition from primary to secondary:
Many Schools try to make the transition easier by having less teachers teach the students in Year 7. For example, the English teacher may also take the students for History and pastoral care.This is so the students have a teacher they are close to. Also, School's often try to put students in friendship groups as well as pair juniors with senior "buddy's" or they may have mentors. Ask the School what they do to address this issue. Also, see Parent Survey where parents give this a rating.

Pastoral Care:
These programs aim to develop the student's socially, emotionally and spiritually. Most of the good programs involve mindfulness, emotional intelligence and develop social skills. Once again, you need to ask the School about this. Or the School Introduction on the School's or MySchool website may have a brief explanation.

Leadership:
Look for leadership programs on the School web site, a common one is "Student Voice". Often these are great positive programs where students interact with peers from different years. They often get involved with decisions at the School such as organisation of sport, food at the canteen, lunch time activities, bullying, uniform, etc.

Support for Slow Learners:
Schools usually have extra support staff who go into classes and sit one-to-one with students who have learning difficulties. Usually students who need this support are identified in Year 7 and support staff are allocated. Once again an important question to ask the School if this s relevant to you.

Policy on devices such as mobile phones and computers:
Most Schools try to embrace modern technology by mandating that subjects have a technology component. However, the distraction that mobile phones cause is a modern issue. School's will have a policy on this that you need to check.

Bullying:
Ask for the School's bullying policy. Indications of bullying can be found by the Student Survey (see School Culture). Note, a summary of the Student Survey will be in the School's Annual report, however, this will be far too general to reveal any bullying problem at the School. Request the full results of the survey.

Exams:
Many School's are introducing Exams in Year 7. Supposedly this prepares students for the Exam type experience in Year 12. However, this puts a lot more stress on younger students and is HIGHLY controversial- see Prof Jo Boaler. This also indicates that the School is academically focused and probably does not offer a range of practical courses like VET.

For a laugh, see this 20 sec snippet by Prof Robert Sapolsky in his address to Stanford graduating students, on where all this testing is heading. If you ever get a chance to look at some of his online lectures do it!

Costs:
You need to also find the extra costs of Computers, specialist subjects like Art, Outdoor Education, etc.