Would you recommend it?
I would not recommend this school to others. It had a good reputation but this is because they focus on appearance rather than the actual wellbeing of students.
What had the biggest impact
I was lucky to have mostly great teachers in my senior years. But earlier than that they were mostly average ir bad. Other students had it worse than me and had not so great teachers even in their senior years. This made working towards their ATAR goals difficult and stressful since they had to teach themselves. Student behaviour is also poor. Discipline is focused heavily on uniform, but very little on poor behaviour. Within the last year alone ive had a milk carton thrown at me by a stranger, a smelly liquid poured on me from the 3rd floor, and people kicking me while I sit on the ground for lunch as they run by without apologising or caring.
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Year 12 subject choices
Specialists, Methods, French, Literature, Physics, and Chemistry. I do not regret any of these subjects except Chemistry, which I chose in case I decided to do Pharmacy in university. Specialists was very difficult and sometimes soul-crushing. If I didn't have a great teacher and friend to help teach me I would have failed miserably. I don't regret it though, because the scaling for ATAR was very high and the content was interesting (but still very difficult).
Getting extra help
This is purely luck. If you get a good teacher, you're set. They'll answer emails with actual help, help you in class, have explanations that actually make sense, and they actually care about you. If you needed accessibility adjustments (e.g. sickness, traumatic events, injury), you had to hope you got the ONE good student counsellor. Otherwise it's unlikely they'll believe or care about your situation enough to do any proper work to help you.
Readiness for life after school
I felt mostly prepared. This is in HUGE thanks to my counsellor and most of my teachers. My counsellor helped me a lot with figuring out what career and degree I'd be interested in and suit me. I must have had more than 5 appointments with him across 3 years about tertiary education and future careers alone. My teachers would answer questions and discuss their experiences even though they didn't have to. They would provide advice as well. My school did not help develop good character qualities. Ironically, we had so many development classes with character strength tests and activities. It's not practical though since we omly learned about them and had it thrown out the window after it was over. Any good character qualities I have are in no thanks to this school. They decreased my perseverance and definitely made it very tempting to decrease my integrity and honesty as well to cope with the difficulties of my classes or rowdy peers.
Subject range and curiosity
School subjects were definitely focused on STEM subjects. Other subjects such were less in quality and availability. There was no encouragement for these subjects. There was (intentional or not) encouragement for the STEM subjects. Most positive input in assemblies, awards, or from teachers were about the STEM subjects.
Bullying and getting to school safely
Bullying was definitely an issue at my school. I personally was sexually harassed by 2 boys several times over nearly 12 months. After going to a deputy, who infortunately was friends with them, no punishment happened. They didn't leave me alone but made it a lot less obvious (e.g. I would move sport activities during events multiple times and they would follow me). I have never seen that teacher reprimand them, she only praised them for getting their uniform right since they usually don't. I also witnessed others being bullied across every year I spent thefe.
Camps and excursions
My school definitely tried to seem more relaxed and modern with events like R U OK day. I think they did quite well with these but it was definitely a stark contrast to the usual everyday. The culture was a bit consertave in the way that there was regular micro-aggression towards minorities such as LGBT people or non-white races.
Something only students would know
People go to the bathrooms to vape, they regularly joke about jumping off of C block to kill themselves, all but one student counsellor is terrible at their job and makes situations worse, and the bathrooms are disgusting.
Coaching and chances to compete
The sports program I participated in was very casual but had good coaching. We had competitions every term I think. I only did one term but I enjoyed the competition. We did absolutely terrible but had fun.
Chances to take part in the arts
I didn't participate much in it but it seemed great. Every yearbook has lots of art and pictures of music performances shown in it. We have a musical once every 2 years and events more regularly such as battle of the band or cultural performances. Any competitions were definitely unfair since it was basically a popularity vote with the teachers judging, but they were still fun to watch and participate in.
- Played sport: Yes
- Sports played: Basketball, Netball
- Did an arts activity: Yes
- Arts activities done: Choir / Vocal Performance
