Why selective school kids need tutors? (1 Viewer)

[moll.]

Some selective schools are at the bottom of the league and could not even compare with good non-selective schools. So it depends. My nieces are in Sydney Girls where they say the low marks are about 70% and the average is about 80% for tests and essays. The top 5 selective schools in Sydney are very good. And you don't have to be extremely smart to enter a 5th ranked selective school.

So I do believe that some kids in selective schools outside the top 5 are dumb arses.

What? What was the point to this post?
And comparing schools by their internal marking is about as useful as comparing economies by using their own currency.

 

[oasfree]

What? What was the point to this post?
And comparing schools by their internal marking is about as useful as comparing economies by using their own currency.

True for most schools, but when it comes to top 5 schools in Sydney, it's pretty reliable as they have very strong standards. Their HSC trials match very closely with the real HSC.

 

[PrettyVacant]

True for most schools, but when it comes to top 5 schools in Sydney, it's pretty reliable as they have very strong standards. Their HSC trials match very closely with the real HSC.

No, some of our HSC trials do not match that closely with the real HSC. Sometimes they can be harder, sometimes they omit certain dotpoints of the syllabus...etc. There are many schools not in the top 5 that have trial exams that are more like the real HSC.

And no, it's not pretty relible in terms of "average being 80%"...etc. Pfft, honestly that stuff doesn't matter and has far too many variables (e.g. test difficulty, teacher's marking...etc) that affect it to be a truly good measure of student abilities. Sure, the cohorts of the top 5 schools are (OVERALL) academically more gifted, but that is not to say that there are no "dumb arses" (hmm, very politically correct there) in the top 5 schools and that is also not to say that schools beyond the top 5 schools don't have incredibly intelligent people.

 

[oasfree]

No, some of our HSC trials do not match that closely with the real HSC. Sometimes they can be harder, sometimes they omit certain dotpoints of the syllabus...etc. There are many schools not in the top 5 that have trial exams that are more like the real HSC.

And no, it's not pretty relible in terms of "average being 80%"...etc. Pfft, honestly that stuff doesn't matter and has far too many variables (e.g. test difficulty, teacher's marking...etc) that affect it to be a truly good measure of student abilities. Sure, the cohorts of the top 5 schools are (OVERALL) academically more gifted, but that is not to say that there are no "dumb arses" (hmm, very politically correct there) in the top 5 schools and that is also not to say that schools beyond the top 5 schools don't have incredibly intelligent people.

Sure you have intelligent people at many other schools as they don't bother traveling to top schools. It's the norm to have one or two incredibly smart kids at some of the schools ranked further down from 50th. Last year one student who got 100UAI came from Smith Hill, Wollongong. This school was ranked quite low among selective schools. Many students who are prodded along too hard by parents eventually become a rebel or simply get burnt out by year 10. These may look like dumb arses because they lose their will to compete. They get too tired.

 

[PrettyVacant]

"Many students" is not correct...in reality it is a very small percentage.


My point was that you were incorrect, sir. You have merely agreed with me (with my point about the intelligent students at "lower" schools) and stated an obvious (yet incorrect) comment about people burning out.


And also the original topic of this thread was "Why selective school kids need tutors?"...to answer that question, it's to stay on top of a very academically capable cohort.

 

[Trebla]

oasfree, I am stunned that you are making some rather remarkable generalisations and assumptions with little evidence to back them up. Just to name a few:

Public primary schools don't teach any difficult mathematics.

This is not true for every public primary school. It all depends on the cohort and teachers. In many public schools students are taught algebra in Year 5 and 6. In my primary school, we even got up to solving problems by setting up algebraic equations (which is meant to be reserved for Year 7).

Educational courses take in the lowest UAIs date back from the 80s when it was actually under 50%! The students at that time often did not learn any subject (at University) that they were going to teach later. For example, they could become a math teacher even though they failed their maths at HS badly ( and therefore allowed to do math in University).

Those who take an education course in university learn the subject at uni. If they fail maths at high school, then there is a good chance they will fail at uni maths and therefore be unable to attain the degree. What makes a good teacher is not always his or her knowledge of the subject but more his or her ability to interact with students and encourage them learn. You can have a 100 UAI and know the subject you are teaching back to front, but if you cannot interact successfully with students then you fail as a teacher.

Still those who are not smart enough will eventually fail to perform well before reaching year 10 and would be told to move back to their normal schools.

Definitely not true. It would be very irresponsible for any school to attempt to kick out bottom students. I failed 3 subjects way back in Year 7, but the school didn't tell me to move, they put me into these study skills programs to encourage improvement. Since then, I've bounced back into the top half of the cohort from the bottom for all those subjects.

So I do believe that some kids in selective schools outside the top 5 are dumb arses.

There are always kids who are "dumb arses" in EVERY school, even in Ruse. I know a girl who went to Ruse and did not get a single band 6 in her HSC. There are kids in Ruse who are several standard deviations below the mean mark. One of my cousins went to Hornsby Girls and she also did not get a single band 6 in any subject. I daresay she didn't even get over 90 in UAI. Ever wondered why Ruse boasts about its MEDIAN UAI and not it's MEAN UAI? Because the median is not affected by "dumb" outliers as opposed to the mean. To illustrate, you can have some score distribution like 60,98,99,99,100 with a median UAI of 99, but a mean UAI of 91.2.

True for most schools, but when it comes to top 5 schools in Sydney, it's pretty reliable as they have very strong standards. Their HSC trials match very closely with the real HSC.

This is definitely false. Have you ever looked at their trial papers? Some of them are actually EASIER than the real HSC. They also vary from year to year. For example, Ruse's Maths Ext2 papers are often way easier than the actual HSC questions. Several people manage equal first with full marks in those trial exams, yet no-one can pull off full marks in the real thing.

You seem to be under the impression that there is this heavenly glow around selective schools where they have the best teachers, best resources and the best students. Anyone who has actually been to a selective school (like myself) will tell you this is simply false. Selective schools are the same as an any public school with the mix of crap teachers and crap students. The only difference is that selective schools tend to have a higher ratio of academically able students in the same environment. That is the ONLY difference, nothing more.

 

[Continuum]

The majority of asian/australian kids in my year go to tutoring and have been going for several years. It's suppsoed to supplement their in class learning but the truth is that some of them don't really pay attention in class and ask questions when they don't know what to do. They become complacent about the point of school.

I don't get what you're trying to say in this paragraph, particularly the last 2 sentences - what point are you making?

I've heard the old quote that the teachers are rubbish and they can't teach and that's why they go to tutoring, but I think it's more a safeguard against them 'failing' (less than 90%) for themselves and their parents.

If you work hard at school and home, unless you are really struggling with a subject, or don't understand it, there should be no need for tutoring. I can't go out with my friends on the weekend because they're all at tutoring on one day and then need to do their school work on the other day.

Not really.

You can't really say tutoring is a safeguard because promises of 'MIN 90 UAI IF TUTORED BY ME' do not exist. I think you misunderstand people who get tutored - they know full well that tutors are not going to do their work for them, that its personal effort that truly counts. I mean, honestly, ask yourself how many of the guys who have tutors think 'yay i have a tutor, i'm definately going to get over this particular uai'? Not many right? You write with the notion that the people getting tutored simply don't work hard, which is pretty pathetic considering there are countless examples of people who work extremely hard and have tutors.

The only real 'safeguard' tutoring provides is for the parents, giving them the feeling that they've helped out with their child's education as much as they could by providing extra help.

 

[oasfree]

oasfree, I am stunned that you are making some rather remarkable generalisations and assumptions with little evidence to back them up. Just to name a few:

Those who take an education course in university learn the subject at uni. If they fail maths at high school, then there is a good chance they will fail at uni maths and therefore be unable to attain the degree. What makes a good teacher is not always his or her knowledge of the subject but more his or her ability to interact with students and encourage them learn. You can have a 100 UAI and know the subject you are teaching back to front, but if you cannot interact successfully with students then you fail as a teacher.

Teachers should not be allowed to teach at all if they don't know their subjects! Full stop! You cannot allow teachers to teach if they don't know what they are teaching. The problem was that people can get a teaching degree without learning what they are going to teach at University in the past. This is particularly for primary school teachers. In the 80s, many of them almost failed their HSC across the board and still got to University to become teachers. For HS teachers, it's a crime to teach if they have not done the subject at University level. All this communication skill you are talking about is secondary to real knowledge of the subjects they are supposed to teach. Although it's true that teachers should have both sets of skills.

Currently some Universities have tried to address the problem by offering combined degree in education and another discipline to make sure teachers have another specialisation apart from teaching skills. BUt when I see 86 in UAI as the entry point for these courses, I beleive most students will prefer a career that pays better than teaching.

 

[oasfree]

I'm at a selective school and am only receiving "tutoring" for extension history. It isn't at a tutoring college, its more like assistance with my essay writing, particularly for the major project.

The majority of asian/australian kids in my year go to tutoring and have been going for several years. It's suppsoed to supplement their in class learning but the truth is that some of them don't really pay attention in class and ask questions when they don't know what to do. They become complacent about the point of school.

I've heard the old quote that the teachers are rubbish and they can't teach and that's why they go to tutoring, but I think it's more a safeguard against them 'failing' (less than 90%) for themselves and their parents.

There are so many kids who went to coaching colleges in order to be able to get into selective schools. It's the teaching ahead and "military" drilling that help them to beat the competition. Perhaps this is what turn off their ability to self-learn. It may also contribution of the first sign of burn-out. Then at HS level they start to enter puberty where social and peer pressure start to play on them (they worked too hard while in primary school, did not have much time to socialise). So there are many factors.

Another thing is 1/2 of the students come from OC classes. These are the better group. They are highest performers since grade 4. The other half is a mix of the OC rejects and those who did not bother going for OC classes. This second group is generally lower ability. The entrance score is between 195 - 280. There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

At OC classes, the students are subjected to difficulty levels that make many primary school teachers have headache themselves. That's why these kids race ahead and open a much larger gap to those who stay back and only enter selective schools without the chance going through OC. This is also why OC kids often get 99.9% placement in selective schools.

Still the fact that so many kids get coaching to enter selective schools disturb me. And they seem to lose steam if they stop going to coaching. It's an unclear area. As I said atthe beginning that we should not count the really smart kids. These kids are too smart even for their teachers so they would do well without coaching. The question remained why the majority of the kids still need tutoring or coaching to stay competitive.

 

[moll.]

There are so many kids who went to coaching colleges in order to be able to get into selective schools. It's the teaching ahead and "military" drilling that help them to beat the competition. Perhaps this is what turn off their ability to self-learn. It may also contribution of the first sign of burn-out. Then at HS level they start to enter puberty where social and peer pressure start to play on them (they worked too hard while in primary school, did not have much time to socialise). So there are many factors.

Another thing is 1/2 of the students come from OC classes. These are the better group. They are highest performers since grade 4. The other half is a mix of the OC rejects and those who did not bother going for OC classes. This second group is generally lower ability. The entrance score is between 195 - 280. There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

At OC classes, the students are subjected to difficulty levels that make many primary school teachers have headache themselves. That's why these kids race ahead and open a much larger gap to those who stay back and only enter selective schools without the chance going through OC. This is also why OC kids often get 99.9% placement in selective schools.

Still the fact that so many kids get coaching to enter selective schools disturb me. And they seem to lose steam if they stop going to coaching. It's an unclear area. As I said atthe beginning that we should not count the really smart kids. These kids are too smart even for their teachers so they would do well without coaching. The question remained why the majority of the kids still need tutoring or coaching to stay competitive.

Nah, completely wrong. For starters, very few selective kids are from OC. In my year, there was only about 30 out the 160.
Yes, the OC cohort normally does better, but that's not cos of what happened at OC. It's just cos they OC goers are all naturally smart. This is cos the parents didn't bother pressuring their kids into studying for the OC test, and instead let them rely on natural talent. When it comes to the selective test, however, many parents force their not-so-bright child to study for it, which means that they get in alongside the OC-ers, who relied on natural talent.
Take it from someone who went to OC, shit all gets done there. We spent most of the time doing art or having competitions to see who could get kicked out of class the most in a day. I normally won.

 

[Continuum]

There are so many kids who went to coaching colleges in order to be able to get into selective schools. It's the teaching ahead and "military" drilling that help them to beat the competition. Perhaps this is what turn off their ability to self-learn. It may also contribution of the first sign of burn-out. Then at HS level they start to enter puberty where social and peer pressure start to play on them (they worked too hard while in primary school, did not have much time to socialise). So there are many factors.

Another thing is 1/2 of the students come from OC classes. These are the better group. They are highest performers since grade 4. The other half is a mix of the OC rejects and those who did not bother going for OC classes. This second group is generally lower ability. The entrance score is between 195 - 280. There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

At OC classes, the students are subjected to difficulty levels that make many primary school teachers have headache themselves. That's why these kids race ahead and open a much larger gap to those who stay back and only enter selective schools without the chance going through OC. This is also why OC kids often get 99.9% placement in selective schools.

Still the fact that so many kids get coaching to enter selective schools disturb me. And they seem to lose steam if they stop going to coaching. It's an unclear area. As I said atthe beginning that we should not count the really smart kids. These kids are too smart even for their teachers so they would do well without coaching. The question remained why the majority of the kids still need tutoring or coaching to stay competitive.

Wow, what rubbish.

 

[spence]

There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

I think that's bullshit, my principal said on numerous occasions that there was a negative correlation at our school, with those getting in from the waiting lists generally outperforming the others in both the SC and the HSC. I know that the guy who came second in our grade got in from the waiting list

 

[yummy-cookies]

People often feel as if they need to go tutoring because of peer pressure - everyone does it, so why put yourself at a disadvantage to other people by not going? Probably around 80% or more of the people at my school (fairly high ranking selective). It's the whole mob mentality (ie. behaving like sheep) thing - one person (or their parents) do it, and the rest of their friends panic and think they're losing out on something by not going.

Sometimes it's just a confidence issue - tutoring is like a security blanket - just by going, you believe you're actually studying. And there are those people who just go to socialise with their friends.

It may also be because of pushy parents. Alot of people who have tutors or do coaching are Asian, who stereotypically value academic success alot. People take the approach that you should give it your all during this vitally important year - this involves signing up for anything that might help.

And there's also the fact that selective school students might not do particularly well in all subjects. Even if their performance is above average in their weak subject on a state wide level, it could translate to bottom of the grade at their school - making them feel 'stupid', and hence take tutoring to catch up to the rest of their smarter grade.

 

[Trebla]

Seriously oasfree, you are making some outrageous claims with little evidence to support them. You seem to be under the impression that people's pasts are what define them. You seem to be under the impression that if a student is not smart to begin with, the student will never improve and become smart in future. Anyone can tell you that this is complete and utter rubbish.

Another thing is 1/2 of the students come from OC classes. These are the better group. They are highest performers since grade 4. The other half is a mix of the OC rejects and those who did not bother going for OC classes. This second group is generally lower ability. The entrance score is between 195 - 280. There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

This is ABSOLUTELY FALSE! To claim that those who did not enter OC generally have lower ability is absolute rubbish. There are plenty of examples where people did not enter OC in Year 5/6 yet they excelled when it came to selective exams. I was in OC in Year 5/6, and many of my friends who were not, scored higher UAIs than me. My sister actually FAILED her OC in Year 4, yet in the selective entrance exam, she made it into a top 10 school. She is a prime example that there can be a big shift in performance between Year 4 to Year 6.

Also, claiming correlation between entry score and performance at selective schools is an outrageous assumption. Do you honestly think that students who initially got a low entry score are doomed to be at the bottom of the cohort in their selective school? Do you seriously believe that students cannot improve over a whole 6 years in secondary school and move up the ranks? My English was horrific way back in Year 6. I actually failed the English section of the entrance exam. According to you, I would be doomed to fail English forever. However, I actually came first in my Year 11 cohort in English Area of Study and ended up with high band 5s in my SC and HSC, which was well above many who didn't actually fail English way back in Year 6.

At OC classes, the students are subjected to difficulty levels that make many primary school teachers have headache themselves. That's why these kids race ahead and open a much larger gap to those who stay back and only enter selective schools without the chance going through OC. This is also why OC kids often get 99.9% placement in selective schools.

In OC the difficulty levels are only slightly above what the rest of the year are taught. We learn essentially the same things, only in OC they have extensions which aim to challenge students. We do not learn new topics, just harder versions of the same topics. The difficulty levels are certainly not as ridiculously high such that primary school teachers have 'headaches'.

Still the fact that so many kids get coaching to enter selective schools disturb me. And they seem to lose steam if they stop going to coaching. It's an unclear area. As I said atthe beginning that we should not count the really smart kids. These kids are too smart even for their teachers so they would do well without coaching. The question remained why the majority of the kids still need tutoring or coaching to stay competitive.

The issue of tutoring is not exclusive to selective schools. All decent sized schools have students within them that have tutoring/coaching.
As mentioned by others and myself, many have very bad teachers or teachers that they can't relate to, so they have tutoring/coaching as alternative means of learning. Selective school kids tend to have tutors because of the competitive environment they are in. You are in a classroom full of 'smarter' students and it's important that you keep up with them.
As for getting kids to have coaching to enter selective schools, I don't understand why you find that disturbing. Preparing kids in coaching to enter selective schools helps motivate them and maximise their potential. Most kids at this age do not have the capacity to self-learn and coaching centres help realise their potential with resources, most people would not have access to otherwise. Most kids themselves are happy in retrospect that they were subjected to coaching to get into a selective school because otherwise they would have slid off the rails and would not have realised their intellectual potential.

 

[dp624]

I think that's bullshit, my principal said on numerous occasions that there was a negative correlation at our school, with those getting in from the waiting lists generally outperforming the others in both the SC and the HSC. I know that the guy who came second in our grade got in from the waiting list

QFT
one of the ppl who got 100uai at my school was on the reserve list (her brother was in school already so she got that 'bonus')

 

[Lightlessice16]

Seriously oasfree, you are making some outrageous claims with little evidence to support them. You seem to be under the impression that people's pasts are what define them. You seem to be under the impression that if a student is not smart to begin with, the student will never improve and become smart in future. Anyone can tell you that this is complete and utter rubbish.

This is ABSOLUTELY FALSE! To claim that those who did not enter OC generally have lower ability is absolute rubbish. There are plenty of examples where people did not enter OC in Year 5/6 yet they excelled when it came to selective exams. I was in OC in Year 5/6, and many of my friends who were not, scored higher UAIs than me. My sister actually FAILED her OC in Year 4, yet in the selective entrance exam, she made it into a top 10 school. She is a prime example that there can be a big shift in performance between Year 4 to Year 6.

Also, claiming correlation between entry score and performance at selective schools is an outrageous assumption. Do you honestly think that students who initially got a low entry score are doomed to be at the bottom of the cohort in their selective school? Do you seriously believe that students cannot improve over a whole 6 years in secondary school and move up the ranks? My English was horrific way back in Year 6. I actually failed the English section of the entrance exam. According to you, I would be doomed to fail English forever. However, I actually came first in my Year 11 cohort in English Area of Study and ended up with high band 5s in my SC and HSC, which was well above many who didn't actually fail English way back in Year 6.

REP

I failed the OC and also the Selective test in yr 6, then got in a selective school in yr11.
Managed to pull a UAI of 98+

I've known some people who managed to got into OC and placement in the top 5 schools in yr6 but they started going downhill, not due to academic pressure but they lose interest in their studies and get addicted to a lifestyle of anime and gaming most of the time. lol

why do most selective students get coaching?

because the majority are asian and their parents want their marks to be better than everyone else's so they can brag to their friends, relatives etc, they dont want their sons/daughters to get a low UAI and have to go through the shame and embarassment that they arent good parents.
If asian parents didnt exist today, then most tutoring/coaching centres would be out of business as the decision is mainly made by the parent rather than their kids.

 

[mleiu]

Seriously oasfree, you are making some outrageous claims with little evidence to support them. You seem to be under the impression that people's pasts are what define them. You seem to be under the impression that if a student is not smart to begin with, the student will never improve and become smart in future. Anyone can tell you that this is complete and utter rubbish.

This is ABSOLUTELY FALSE! To claim that those who did not enter OC generally have lower ability is absolute rubbish. There are plenty of examples where people did not enter OC in Year 5/6 yet they excelled when it came to selective exams. I was in OC in Year 5/6, and many of my friends who were not, scored higher UAIs than me. My sister actually FAILED her OC in Year 4, yet in the selective entrance exam, she made it into a top 10 school. She is a prime example that there can be a big shift in performance between Year 4 to Year 6.

Also, claiming correlation between entry score and performance at selective schools is an outrageous assumption. Do you honestly think that students who initially got a low entry score are doomed to be at the bottom of the cohort in their selective school? Do you seriously believe that students cannot improve over a whole 6 years in secondary school and move up the ranks? My English was horrific way back in Year 6. I actually failed the English section of the entrance exam. According to you, I would be doomed to fail English forever. However, I actually came first in my Year 11 cohort in English Area of Study and ended up with high band 5s in my SC and HSC, which was well above many who didn't actually fail English way back in Year 6.

In OC the difficulty levels are only slightly above what the rest of the year are taught. We learn essentially the same things, only in OC they have extensions which aim to challenge students. We do not learn new topics, just harder versions of the same topics. The difficulty levels are certainly not as ridiculously high such that primary school teachers have 'headaches'.

The issue of tutoring is not exclusive to selective schools. All decent sized schools have students within them that have tutoring/coaching.
As mentioned by others and myself, many have very bad teachers or teachers that they can't relate to, so they have tutoring/coaching as alternative means of learning. Selective school kids tend to have tutors because of the competitive environment they are in. You are in a classroom full of 'smarter' students and it's important that you keep up with them.
As for getting kids to have coaching to enter selective schools, I don't understand why you find that disturbing. Preparing kids in coaching to enter selective schools helps motivate them and maximise their potential. Most kids at this age do not have the capacity to self-learn and coaching centres help realise their potential with resources, most people would not have access to otherwise. Most kids themselves are happy in retrospect that they were subjected to coaching to get into a selective school because otherwise they would have slid off the rails and would not have realised their intellectual potential.

*thumbs*

Nuff said. Thanks, I think you've spoken all the thoughts of most people who are not completely ignorant.

 

[oasfree]

This is ABSOLUTELY FALSE! To claim that those who did not enter OC generally have lower ability is absolute rubbish. There are plenty of examples where people did not enter OC in Year 5/6 yet they excelled when it came to selective exams. I was in OC in Year 5/6, and many of my friends who were not, scored higher UAIs than me. My sister actually FAILED her OC in Year 4, yet in the selective entrance exam, she made it into a top 10 school. She is a prime example that there can be a big shift in performance between Year 4 to Year 6.

You should read more carefully. I said that those who entered and failed OC have lower ability.

Also, claiming correlation between entry score and performance at selective schools is an outrageous assumption. Do you honestly think that students who initially got a low entry score are doomed to be at the bottom of the cohort in their selective school? Do you seriously believe that students cannot improve over a whole 6 years in secondary school and move up the ranks? My English was horrific way back in Year 6. I actually failed the English section of the entrance exam. According to you, I would be doomed to fail English forever. However, I actually came first in my Year 11 cohort in English Area of Study and ended up with high band 5s in my SC and HSC, which was well above many who didn't actually fail English way back in Year 6.

HSC ranking for schools and entrance scores support my observation and what parents say. James Ruse got the cream and always perform high above the next 4 in the list of top 5. The list of entrance cut-off scores and HSC ranking seem quite consistent.

In OC the difficulty levels are only slightly above what the rest of the year are taught. We learn essentially the same things, only in OC they have extensions which aim to challenge students. We do not learn new topics, just harder versions of the same topics. The difficulty levels are certainly not as ridiculously high such that primary school teachers have 'headaches'.

Wrong. It depends on the OC classes. Some draw on University lecturers to enrich their students in depth and coverage.

 

[oasfree]

There are several differences in opinion I note here. The statistics from the DET website shows about 1750 kids got OC placement for 2009. And about double that for selective schools. So the OC number is about 1/2 of selective schools. Most OC kids head to selective schools and the success rate is near 100%. Different OC classes are different. Some ofthem draw on resources from outside at University level to provide enrichment to students. They cover a lot more and at a greater depth. My own kid is in a good OC class and it was very different from normal school. Again it depends on a particular OC class and the teachers that run the class.

You guys say that some students who did not enter selective schools with high score and managed well later in the HSC. Yes, that's true but that's the exception rather than the norm. As the statistics is not released by the DET, we don't have real figures to work on. Words of mouth from community of parents point to a high correlation between entrance score and later HSC performance. Of course there are many exceptions. But I beleive these are just exceptions.

Looking athe statistics from James Ruse really blows your mind off. By looking at the cut off scores of entry, you see clearly James Ruse takes the cream who scored above 240. Then look down the list to other schools in top 10, you see the dropping off of scores. And that fits well with the HSC performance each year. Selective schools that take students in at 190-210 points really struggle to get close to top 10 in the HSC. I personally do not believe that James Ruse teaches any "significantly" better than the other top 4 selective schools in Sydney.

Still the question is unclear why selective school students need coaching to keep up. Needing coaching to enter OC and selective schools is one thing, but needing coaching to keep up is a more complex issue. The glaring problem is that the learning seems to to happen at coaching/tutoring places rather than at schools. But this means teachers at selective schools are no good. And it sounds impossible as many teachers at schools are often those who work for coaching places.

What I am speculating is the divide between intelligence and hardwork. You need BOTH to be successful. What I have seen, seems to suggest that if kids only have "hardwork" and average intelligence, they manage to get into selective schools but won't do well without coaching. After all attending coaching is hardwork. It means more study time and 3x the weekly home work. Some people even claim that if coaching is banned (only hypothetically), 90% of students in selective schools would fail to perform and return to normal schools. I don't buy into this theory at this moment but I find it interesting and worth investigating. There is a bit of racial issue here too as the people claiming this are often white who think Asian kids rob their kids of the chance to go to selective schools.

Differences in opinion is good. It just shows the issue is very complex. People see the issue quite differently from one another.

 

[Trebla]

You should read more carefully. I said that those who entered and failed OC have lower ability.

Another thing is 1/2 of the students come from OC classes. These are the better group. They are highest performers since grade 4. The other half is a mix of the OC rejects and those who did not bother going for OC classes. This second group is generally lower ability. The entrance score is between 195 - 280. There is a big correlation between the entry score and actually performance at selective schools. Most of the students who only scrape in (through waiting lists) struggle badly to get high marks.

I think you should read your own post more carefully.

HSC ranking for schools and entrance scores support my observation and what parents say. James Ruse got the cream and always perform high above the next 4 in the list of top 5. The list of entrance cut-off scores and HSC ranking seem quite consistent.

Cut-off scores on selective exams are based on supply and demand. HSC ranks vary from year to year as do selective entrance scores. HSC ranks can fluctuate quite rapidly and this happens INDEPENDENTLY of the entrance score. Take Fort Street HS for example, in 2007 it's HSC rank climbed close to the top 10, it's highest in a long time, yet in 2008 it dropped massively almost out of the top 30. The entrance score into Fort St HS on the other hand hasn't fluctuated much over the past 6 years. My sister got an entrance score which would not have qualified her for Fort St HS, yet she got into a top 10 school which is always ranked above Fort St HS and this was not a reserve offer. Sefton HS which is a low ranked half-selective school once ranked ABOVE Hurlstone Agricultural HS and close to Sydney Technical HS which both have much higher entrance score and are both fully selective. These fluctuations happen all the time with unpredictable nature and you cannot point out a clear correlation.

Also, within the cut-off scores and above in a given school, you cannot make the claim that those with the lowest cut-off score will be at the bottom at school cohort throughout the entire 6 years. There have been plenty of examples provided where there is no correlation between entrance score and HSC scores and they definitely are not exceptions. You have not disproved my point but merely restated your own.

Have a look at Sefton HS stats for HSC 2005 which has a very low entrance score (one of the lowest) compared to fully selective schools. I quote:
"The average results of Sefton High School selective students are on a par with the results of those of students in fully selective schools. In 71% of courses they are in fact higher"
Welcome to Sefton High School :: Faculties :: SEFTON HIGH SCHOOL HSC RESULTS 2005