After seven years of state funded education we have 'jumped ship' to the private, single sex path. In the jargon, 'pastoral care' is what school is at least fifty per cent about. Or, tellingly, what the state system did not, or could not, provide. My 'only' Eleanor suffered bullying in Rhode Island when she started school there (different voice) then again when we entered the Australian system. (American accent.) Both times schools paid 'lip service' rather than addressing the problem; essentially my daughter was to 'toughen up.'
High school provided a new set of challenges. In this state single sex girls schools abound but Victorian state education is chronically underfunded for boys so some state schools end up with an over-concentration of males. Footscray City College provides boys-only classes to partially address this problem. But in Eleanor's academic 'high achievers' class the ration of boys to girls was 22 to 7. (Although school staff assured me there would be no problems provided the girls made up at least a third of the class.) However, at thirteen, Eleanor notices how the boys already dominate teacher attention...
A 'politically correct' support only state education is all very well – in theory. This late life mother has learned that when it comes to your own child, it is their best interests that matter, not what the intelligentsia may preach.
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