IB curriculum or Australian curriculum??

[Guest sarah_h]

Hi everyone,

We will b shifting to Adelaide next month and my son will start REception from January.. Wat im confused about is whether i should put him in a school with IB curriculum or Australian curriculum??

which is the better one??

Does it matter at this stage???

 

Plz advice..

 

Also, for IB we r confused between Rosepark Primary and Stradbroke Primary...and for Australian curriculum, East Marden Primary.

as our housing budget is max $300 per week so we are considering these suburbs..

please give ur feedback.

[NicF]

My kids go to Stradbroke and we are very happy with the school. To be honest I have no idea what the difference is between IB and Australian curriculum but I would expect at reception age there wouldn't be too much difference. What I would say though is you will struggle to get anything decent for $300 a week around Rostrevor. The area around Rosepark primary is even more expensive so you are even less likely to find anywhere nice for $300 near that school. I don't know so much about the area around East Marden but it might be a bit cheaper. You might find that unless you are prepared to travel to get to school that your choice of school may be determined by where you can afford to live.

[snifter]

For reception age and even into senior school, unless you are planning on moving round the world for the duration of his schooling forever more I'd go for the Aus option. If you will be continually moving countries I'd look to the IB so you know he can slot into schooling.

 

If you are in Aus on a temp visa and plan to return to the UK in a few years he should transfer over just fine into the UK system from the Aus one.

[NicF]

Hi everyone,

We will b shifting to Adelaide next month and my son will start REception from January.. Wat im confused about is whether i should put him in a school with IB curriculum or Australian curriculum??

which is the better one??

Does it matter at this stage???

 

Plz advice..

 

Also, for IB we r confused between Rosepark Primary and Stradbroke Primary...and for Australian curriculum, East Marden Primary.

as our housing budget is max $300 per week so we are considering these suburbs..

please give ur feedback.

 

Is there a particular reason you have chosen these three schools? They are quite spread out and there are quite a few other primary schools in the suburbs between and around these areas. Having read your post again it kind of implies you are considering these schools because you think they are in areas where you might be able to get housing for $300 a week. As I pointed out above at least two of these schools are in areas that are actually quite expensive for housing. Check out realestate.com.au for rental properties in the areas you are considering and try myschool.edu.au for information on schools, including a list of all primary schools in Adelaide.

 

Snifter I'm giving to have to disagree about the IB verses the Australian curriculum. I think it makes very little difference which you follow as there is no national curriculum here in the same way as the UK and what kids actually get taught varies from teacher to teacher, never mind school to school. Schools that do the IB still do the Naplan tests and some of them even get pretty good results. In my opinion it's far better to select a school based on it's merits than to worry about whether it follows a particular curriculum.

[snifter]

Snifter I'm giving to have to disagree about the IB verses the Australian curriculum. I think it makes very little difference which you follow as there is no national curriculum here in the same way as the UK and what kids actually get taught varies from teacher to teacher, never mind school to school. Schools that do the IB still do the Naplan tests and some of them even get pretty good results. In my opinion it's far better to select a school based on it's merits than to worry about whether it follows a particular curriculum.

 

Fair comment. I was going out from cost of paying for an IB school and also that a cirriculum of some sort is being wheeled out from what I have heard/read. And that it will follow specifics not giving teachers the freedom they do now.

 

I'd not bother paying fees for an IB school (if they are fee paying, if not then that isn't a factor) if a good state school were an option. I don't really see any great attraction for IB unless moving round lots or at a point where exams and leaving school are coming in to play and a teenager would prefer to gain an IB of moving between UK/Aus, Aus/UK or some such and then perhaps would be moving back again.

[NicF]

Fair comment. I was going out from cost of paying for an IB school and also that a cirriculum of some sort is being wheeled out from what I have heard/read. And that it will follow specifics not giving teachers the freedom they do now.

 

I'd not bother paying fees for an IB school (if they are fee paying, if not then that isn't a factor) if a good state school were an option. I don't really see any great attraction for IB unless moving round lots or at a point where exams and leaving school are coming in to play and a teenager would prefer to gain an IB of moving between UK/Aus, Aus/UK or some such and then perhaps would be moving back again.

 

Quite a lot of the state schools around Adelaide are IB, primary and senior - the two mentioned by the OP above are state primaries. It seems to be quite popular here, possibly because of the lack of set curriculum. I don't actually know that much about the IB program even though my kids attend an IB school, but it seems to be about developing rounded, independent learners which doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. I pull be wrong but there doesn't seem to be too many specifics set by the IB program and a lot of learning my kids have done has been Australia focused not international. Of the senior schools that follow the IB program most see to switch to the Australian qualification for Y11 and Y12, while some offer both options.

 

I've just realised how much I don't know about IB and I think some research may be in order. I stand by the chose a school based on it's merits though.

[Guest sarah_h]

thanks lots everyone for your opinion.

NicF...the reason for our selecting these 3 schools is a combination of the school rating and, yes you are right, cost of housing.

Yes now after checking a few real estate sites, I have come to know that its quite difficult to get a "fairly decent" option in Rose park for under 300 or so per week....

Now we are trying our luck in Campbelltown and the surrounding suburbs...lets c what comes out of it..

 

Any recommended areas keeping these two factors in mind( one,a good rating primary school and two, a decent living place with 2 toddlers which has shops,bus stops,parks etc at walking distance) would be greatly appreciated...

 

thanks much...

[Guest ingyfikry]

Hi sara. My kids are both in primary and I would like to share my experience it might help. We are arriving in dec and did a reccie in august to choose school, suburb etc. I planned for about six months (lists and pros and cons etc etc and did a huge research) and had a list of schools based on scores and IB curriculum.

I chose a completely different school:))))) henley beach primary. We still have not started school there yet so cannot give better info but it just seemed the best one for our kids out of about ten schools we visited.

if you have not visited any of them actually going and seeing schools will completely make up ur mind and you will feel just right about one of them.

one of the so-called top ranking ones was so depressive that kids were actually panicking at the thought of moving:)) by the way its not one of the ones on your list .

So one of them will feel just right and go for it. I personally felt more comfortable in smaller schools and a less formal more welcoming schools. The move is hard enough for my kids as it is.

good luck with ur school search!

by the way the western beachy suburbs are totally awesome and cheerful and have some pretty nice schools and reasonable rentals if you do not want beach front (but I am a beach person so a bit biased to beachside living!)