Category: General Education

Australian Schools and Coronavirus – More NSW Schools Closed For Cleaning – 25th of July 2020

Three more NSW schools in Western Sydney was closed on Friday after multiple students were tested positive for Covid-19. The schools in question are as follows.

  • Cerdon College
  • Mary Immaculate Catholic Primary School
  • Freeman Catholic College

The schools are expected to reopen by middle of the next week. This sort of things has been happening fair frequently in the last few weeks in Australia. While in isolation the short school closures are not a big deal, however if we cannot eliminate this virus, we will have more and more frequent occurance of this and it is simply not sustanable in the long run.

We have similar geographic set up as New Zealand and if they can do it, we can eliminate the virus as well get our schools back to normal again. Rather than stuck in the current cycle of suppression, reopen and suppression again, it is better to bite the bullet and go for the elimination. There is an assumption by Federal and some state governments that complete elimination of the Covid-19 is not possible. We need to have some political courage and take the hard road to get Australia back to normal as soon as possible.

Australia wide there are a total of 13950 confirmed infections today and an increase of 374 which is equivalent to 2.75% from yesterday. Victoria counted 95.45% of the new Covid-19 infection for today in Australia. With the number of people on the street in Sydney, I do not think the suppression strategy will work for NSW. Eventually, we may have to bite the bullet and go for a hard lockdown like NZ went through.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – NSW Schools Start Term 3 – 21st of July 2020

NSW schools started their term 3 today and my kids are both back to school now. Unfortunately with the surging growth of Covid-19 community infections in NSW, this may change very soon. The speed of infection currently spreading, unless we going into lockdown, there is a good chance that NSW schools will have to go back to remote learning again anyway.

Australia wide there are a total of 12428 confirmed infections today and an increase of 387 which is equivalent to 3.21% from yesterday. Victoria counted 96.64% of the new Covid-19 infection for today in Australia. Infections look like to be exploding in NSW as well, so it is likely we are heading towards the second wave is happening in Australia as well. I personally believe suppression is not a viable strategy and elimination then the vaccine is the only viable way forward from this point on.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – Victorian School Holiday Extended – 9th of July 2020

With the entire state of Victoria going back into stage 3 lockdown, winter holiday for metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire schools has also been extended for one more week and reopen on 20th of July for students from prep to year 10. It is very likely that many of the Victorian schools will go back to remote learning again after school restarts.

Regional schools will go back to face to face learning next week as previously planned. Private and Catholic schools are expected to follow this as well.

In case you are not aware of, Al-Taqwa College in western Melbourne suffered the biggest school related outbreak of Coronavirus so far in Australia with over 90 infections traced back to school in question.

With the way things are going, it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Australia wide there are a total of 8870 confirmed infections today and an increase of 182 which is equivalent to 2.09% from yesterday. Victoria counted 90.66% of the total Covid-19 infection for today in Australia.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – Second Wave In Victoria – 2nd of July 2020

Victoria has suffered a string of school closure in the last two weeks including human to human transmission within the school. Right now Victorian schools are on their winter holiday which goes from 27th of June to the 12th of July. Currently, there are discussions happening on whether schools within the specific lockdown suburbs will reopen on term three or not.

Victoria also suffering from very significant community transmissions and the next two to three weeks will largely determine which direction this will go.

Australia wide there are a total of 8001 confirmed infections today and an increase of 86 which is equivalent to 1.09% from yesterday. Victoria counted 89.53% of the total Covid-19 infection for today in Australia.

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Chatswood Public and High School Upgrade

Anybody who has been to the Chatswood Public and High School recently can easily notice how cramped they are and facilities are very dated as well. Chatswood also has been a massive building boom recently, the multiple new high rise residential towers are the best proves of this. The upgrade plan has passed the planning and currently in the design stage.

Quoting the NSW school infrastructure website

  • More than 150 new and refurbished teaching spaces from Kindergarten to Year 12.
  • Increased quality active play space currently allocated to both schools.
  • Specialist teaching facilities such as maths, science and art rooms.
  • Dedicated performing arts spaces and music rooms at the high school.
  • New sports facilities and recreational areas.
  • New libraries and administration facilities.

You can find the detailed upgrade plan with the following link.

Chatswood Public and High School Upgrade Plan

The current demountable buildings on the site of Chatswood High School used by Chatswood Public School will continue used as it is. Forecasted completion date will be in late 2023.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – Second Wave? – 16th of June 2020

All students in every states are fully back into school now. With this it also brings back the risk of new Coronavirus infections.

Following are just some of the schools that are closed recently due to positive Coronavirus infections.

Victoria

  • St Dominic’s School in Broadmeadows
  • Pakenham Springs Primary School
  • Strathmore Primary School

NSW

  • Laguna Street Public School
  • Rose Bay Public School

With more school related restrictions and general public social restrictions all being relaxed. It certainly heightens the chance and risk of second wave of Coronavirus. Given that it is impossible for Australia to completely close its border until the vaccine is available the risky of second wave will always be here.

Australia wide there are a total of 7347 confirmed infections today and an increase of 12 which is equivalent to 0.16% from yesterday. All states other than NSW and Vic basically got zero infection for very extended period now.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – More School Restrictions Relaxed – 15th of June 2020

NSW schools have more restrictions relaxed, assemblies are back on now again. School bands are also back on again instead of the zoom practice for the last few weeks. Other than schools still bane parents inside the school itself, just about everything school wise are close to back to normal now. There are definitely some behaviour changes, most of the parents are waiting outside the school for the pickup and keeping a good distance between each other.

I have not heard anything about excursion and camps yet. They will probably be back on from next term.

Australia wide there are a total of 7335 confirmed infections today and an increase of 15 which is equivalent to 0.20% from yesterday. It appears other than NSW and Victoria, all other states had pretty much achieved total suppression. NSW had a few cases of community transmission cases poped up recently which is very concerning. My day to day life is more or less back to normal other than my wife and I still working from home still. We are still planning going on holiday in July and fingers crossed everything will still stay under control.

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NSW Government Primary School Ranking (Eastwood Public School 2015-2019)

One of recent visitor to the site Jason recently raised the question about fluctuating of the ranking of the Eastwood Public School over the years.

The following table shows the ranking and relevant percentage from 2015 to 2019. One more thing to note is that the percentage is based on the number one primary school Australia wide regardless of the school sector for the year in question. I only included the Government schools only comparison to make the comparison easier to perform.

Eastwood Public SchoolRankingPercentage
20151789.89%
2016489.79%
20172989.21%
20181191.04%
20192189.76%

As you can see the percentage is actually very stable much more so than I expected actually. The fluctuating of the ranking in this particular case is almost all based on how well the other schools did in the relevant years. In reality, there is little difference in academic performance with ranking 11 or 29. Some movements with ranking are to normal and to be expected unless you are the top few schools that tend to always dominate the top positions.

Enrolment with government public schools at the primary level is based on catchment, so unless you are one of the top schools that tend to attract the best, some fluctuations year to year is to be expected.

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Australian Schools and Coronavirus – 5th of June 2020

This is the second week that NSW students had been back to school full time now. I am much less stressed now which is great The kids are enjoying their time back at school, probably because they are cooped inside and lack of socialising as well.

Some additional rules were put into place, no assembly, no excursions and no sports teacher from outside of school as well.

Australia wide there are a total of 7251 confirmed infections today and an increase of 11 which is equivalent to 0.15% from yesterday. Most of the cases are from hotel quarantine of recently arrived in Australia. The complete suppression had been far more successful than I originally expected, only if we had started mandatory 14-day quarantine of recent arrivals, we may have achieved complete suppression already.

All the states are in the process of lifting lockdown restrictions. My local shopping centre is pretty much back to pre lockdown level of the crowd. My wife and I are still working full time from home. We do not expect this to change until August at the earliest.

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Top Ranking Northern Territory Darwin Secondary School For The Year Of 2019 (Non-government/Private)

Top ranking Northern Territory Darwin Secondary Schools (Non-government and Private) for the year 2019. The result is a combination of both year 7 and 9 numbers from NAPLAN. One thing to note is some schools listed have very low enrolment number so the result is possibly not a reliable reflection of the entire school’s performance and historically can have big fluctuations as well. This is why I also included the enrolment number here, some school got big enrolment number as well due to they are classified as combined with both primary and secondary components counted together. One more thing to note is that the percentage is based on the number one primary school regardless of school sector Australia wide. Just so to be clear that the particular school is James Ruse Agricultural High School for the year of 2019.

RankingSchool NameStateSchool SectorLocationTotal EnrolmentPercentage
1The Essington International School DarwinNTIndependentOuter Regional97582.52%
2St Philip's CollegeNTIndependentRemote66477.16%
3Araluen Christian CollegeNTIndependentRemote15876.75%
4O'Loughlin Catholic CollegeNTCatholicOuter Regional58476.62%
5Good Shepherd Lutheran CollegeNTIndependentOuter Regional116875.87%
6Palmerston Christian SchoolNTIndependentOuter Regional32075.83%
7Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic CollegeNTCatholicRemote73375.27%
8Haileybury Rendall SchoolNTIndependentOuter Regional51773.61%
9MacKillop Catholic CollegeNTCatholicOuter Regional69473.52%
10Marrara Christian CollegeNTIndependentOuter Regional34071.43%
11St Joseph's Catholic CollegeNTCatholicRemote21670.92%
12Sattler Christian CollegeNTIndependentOuter Regional10169.39%
13St John's Catholic CollegeNTCatholicOuter Regional19766.28%
14Xavier Catholic CollegeNTCatholicRemote7657.40%
15Yirara CollegeNTIndependentRemote22251.18%
16Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Thamarrurr Catholic CollegeNTCatholicVery Remote59146.82%
17Tiwi CollegeNTIndependentVery Remote13341.68%
18Yipirinya SchoolNTIndependentRemote16433.06%
19Ltyentye Apurte Catholic SchoolNTCatholicRemote115N/A
20Alice Springs Steiner SchoolNTIndependentRemote155N/A
21Nhulunbuy Christian CollegeNTIndependentVery Remote151N/A
22Nyangatjatjara CollegeNTIndependentVery Remote75N/A
23Milkwood Steiner SchoolNTIndependentOuter Regional88N/A
24Gawa Christian SchoolNTIndependentVery Remote65N/A

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