A lot of people assume that if you move your child from public school to private school, it must be because the public school wasn’t good enough. In our case it was the opposite. My child had a great run at their public school. Teachers noticed him, backed him, and gave him more opportunities than I expected. Honestly, it made me look at Australian public education differently.
We ended up moving him to a private school anyway, but not because public school let us down. His goals for the next few years changed, and the new school fit those goals better. Public and private aren’t “better” or “worse” as categories. It’s just about fit, and that’s going to look different for every family.
Two terms in, and he’s settled
He’s been at the new school for two terms now and he’s doing well there. Term 1 had a few rough patches, a couple of low moods in the first few weeks, which I think is fair enough for any kid starting somewhere new. He found his people fairly quickly though, and that turned things around.
One thing worth knowing if you’re in a similar position: we weren’t enrolling in the school’s main intake year, and that came with a real downside. Because he started partway through Year 2, on a fairly last-minute offer, the new-student intake was tiny. Only three kids started with him that term, one girl and two boys. We’d actually asked the school to place him with a couple of kids he already knew from before enrolling, which meant he wasn’t grouped with the other new students in his class. If your child is starting outside the normal intake window, it’s worth asking directly how many other new kids will be in their year, because the answer can be a very small number.
The interview happened after we’d already paid
Something that surprised me about the process: we paid the enrolment fees before the interview. The interview itself felt more like a formality by that point, and it was entirely a conversation between the school and my son, not us. They asked him what he liked to play, his favourite subject, who his favourite teacher had been at his old school and what that teacher would say about him if they asked, what extracurriculars he did and whether he actually enjoyed them. It ran for around 20 minutes and felt more like a chat than an assessment.
After he started, the same person who’d interviewed him called to check in on how he was settling. She said he didn’t come across as a new student at all. Part of that is because he already knew a few kids from the school’s junior years, and part of it is that he’s a sporty kid, so he slotted into the sports groups almost immediately and found his circle fast.
Follow-up has genuinely been different
This is one area where I’d say private has been noticeably ahead of public, in our experience at least: the school follows up. Emails get answered the same day. Parent-teacher meetings and the written reports feel personal rather than templated, like someone actually sat down and thought about my son specifically rather than filling in a form.
The mornings got harder, and that’s my one real complaint
Here’s the trade-off nobody warns you about. At his old public school we left the house at 8:50am. Now it’s 7:45am, partly because the school is further away and partly because the day just starts earlier. I didn’t expect to miss the old routine as much as I do. Winter mornings especially, cold, dark, dragging everyone out of bed an hour earlier than before, it’s genuinely rough. And it doesn’t stop at term time either. Even during the holidays, his body clock still wakes him up at the same early hour. The upside is that the four holiday blocks are longer overall, but if I’m honest, the earlier mornings are the one part of this move I’m still not happy about.
New things the curriculum brought
Year 2 at the new school comes with a compulsory year-long strings program, no extra fee involved. He chose the cello. It’s funny what novelty does for a kid: he never once picked up a piano on his own, but he’ll get up in the morning and practise the cello without being asked. The school also runs a “special” pull-out group where selected students are taken out of their regular class for separate group teaching, and every student studies Mandarin as a second language. There’s a daily lunch-ordering system too, which has been a nice practical change. There’s clearly more to discover as the year goes on, and I’ll keep noting the differences as they come up.
The one piece of advice I’d give any parent
If there’s one thing I’d genuinely encourage every parent to do, regardless of whether you have a son or a daughter, it’s getting your child into some kind of team sport early, especially in the younger years. If sport isn’t their thing, a choir or an orchestra does something similar. It might not show results straight away, but stick with it and you will see the difference. My son plays basketball, and watching him alongside other boys his age, I notice it. It’s given him a lot, more than I expected when we first signed him up. Raising Children Network, which is backed by the Australian Government, has some useful, practical guidance on how to help kids actually enjoy team sport rather than just endure it, if you want a place to start.
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