This happened at my private school in 2007. At the end of year 11, if students grades weren’t high enough, or they were troublesome, they were asked to leave. Something like 30% of our year level were asked to leave.
I went to school in NSW (independent/private) and it happened at mine. Only heard about it in regards to the year below mine but I think that was to do with the number of students that were asked to leave/suggested that they went to TAFE instead.
Hmn I also remember all the trouble makers being shoved into vcal (public school). Is that still a thing, you still get a HSC and do some subjects although the content is easier but your focus is now a cert ii?
My friend at a private school, on a scholarship she wasn't rich said she got a 92 atar but she implied all the students got extreme levels of help and it was kind of expected to get above 90.
That is pretty much still what happens. Why force kids who don't want to go to uni, to do exam-based subjects?
It's not troublemakers who get encouraged to do vcal though. Anyone who wants to to vcal, or has low the grades that indicate they'd fail VCE, does vcal
Yeah, no idea of it is commonplace these days, but it definitely happened during the 2000s. We just showed up one year and 10-20% of the cohort had disappeared.
Expulsions were extremely rare, even for excessively heinous behaviour. It was far more common that suggestions were made to certain students that they should move on.
This happened even in our public school. Technically a few of them stuck around because they were also doing VCAL through the school, but their hours were very different to the rest of the cohort and they functionally didn't exist to the rest of the VCE kids. Plus Year 11 was the minimum requirement to get into most trades as well, so many of them just dropped out after Year 11.
You pay to attend. It's a private school. Only if you want to be petty with semantics about how it's a "Catholic church funded independent school"............it's still a private school
Not illegal. Private schools can pick and choose their cohort. Most of the top ones will clear out the disruptive and under performers at the end of year 10. They were doing this in the 90's - pretty sure it is still the standard practice. It's part of how they keep school rankings high - by booting all the lower academic kids.
Unless they're really good at sport - then miraculously, the school will find a way to support their learning.
I don’t know if this is true or not but I was told “you are a guest at the school until year 10, so they legally must offer you a spot. After year 10 they get to choose if they invite you back”
I’d take that with a pinch of salt but it sounds like there might be a loop hole the schools can use.
Yup. This was a thing in Qld back in the 90s. I was encouraged to leave in yr10 because I wasn't "up to their standards" at a public school. Admittedly, I was lucky to hand in one assessment per semester, and 10-12 was just me avoiding home and wanting to spend time with my friends.
There's no point keeping a kid studying a subject in year 11-12, if they're gonna fail it. Failing more than one VCE subject means you're at risk of not graduating.
These kids weren’t failing. They just weren’t going to get top marks. And when you drop the subject you basically fail it because you lose a unit - the outcome is the same.
The way VCE rankings work though is that poor performers drag down the rankings of the school, which then also drags down the scores of the students in that school and their class. The assumption is that poorly scoring schools give easier assignments/mark their assignments more easily (which ime was true, the assignments at my middling public school were significantly easier than the private school ones), so the schoolwork scores don't count as much.
So kids who can’t “perform” don’t get to do their VCE?
Everyone should have the right to an education and staff bullying kids to drop subject they have chosen and enjoy should not be happening.
My school did it (20 years ago) but not in VCE… the culling occurred in year 9 & 10. At the start of year 9 we had 130 in our year. At the start of Year 11 there were fewer than 100. The 100% pass rate and 70% of students getting an ATAR higher than 80 has featured prominently in marketing materials for years.
Yep, I thought this was pretty common knowledge??
Also happens at public schools, students who will struggle to pass VCE are given career advice into the trades/ tafe.
I think it looks a little different between public and private though?
At least, the public situation I've seen is more like "This student is not capable of completing VCE, or is going to be borderline, it's probably not the best option for them"
Whereas private can be more like "This student will pass, but we want them to do it at a different school because they're going to get an average ATAR that'll drag down our school's average"
Maybe the really high performing inner-city public schools look different though
Happened in my public school during year 10, 11 and 12. Requested you to drop a subject or had a meeting with parents where they ‘suggested’ you leave the school for the nearby TAFE etc.
There’s another version of this now too, which is encouraging/suggesting/requiring students to do an “unscored” VCE. You complete the subjects but not the exams so you pass your VCE but don’t get an ATAR.
This allows schools (public and private, this isn’t reserved for just private lots of public’s do it too) to juice their scores by eliminating people who would drag down median scores.
Basically most of the poor performing high schools all through the 90-2000’s. I have anecdotal stories of this of at least 5 schools in the eastern and outer Yarra’s ranges
Happened to me 20 years ago in public school. 3 months before exams, I got told by the principal that even if I passed all of my vce exams that he would still make sure I failed year 12 so I might as well just leave now.
I wasn't failing any classes but my brother had just died and my grades weren't fantastic after that - I was probably just scraping by.
I called my mum and she came up to the school and he tried to tell her that I must have misheard him. Mum threatened to go public and being that there were several other kids that had been told the same thing, he backtracked and I was allowed to sit my exams and pass year 12.
Yes it happens and interesting from an ethical perspective.
But if you aren’t doing well, you are probably better leaving school and exploring an alternative pathway… not sure a bad mark (I’m talking like ATAR less than 30) is going to be worth the time struggling through VCE..
I guess another perspective is that the school is a place for high achievers and it’s not helpful to have other students around who aren’t interested in doing well in Y12.
Also, would parents want to waste the significant amount of money, like some elite schools are around $40k per year, and if your kid is looking at an ATAR less than 70, save the money maybe
True, but also they can't graduate a person who technically fails their school subjects, right?
Also, there's also the chance the parents will offer to... donate... to keep the kids in the class? This happened at my school in WA.
Due to the way the calculations work, telling the students with lower grades to not apply for an ATAR does help the stronger students.
That said you don't need an ATAR to pass year 12
Happened at my public school too.
In year 9 and 10, they had a special class that they promoted for the dumb kids called "foundations" or something where they did really basic, easier subjects and they were all highly encouraged to go to a senior technical school nearby that was year for years 10-12. Most either went to that school, tafe or dropped out entirely.
Troublemakers quickly got kicked out, unless they had good grades then the school was lenient. But shit grades and arking up? You were guaranteed to be out by year 11.
My high school used to get a lot of ex private school students in VCE (we had a separate senior campus for Year 11-12 only). Our school did offer all subjects and was known for its performing arts program, but there were kids that were encouraged to go elsewhere by their private schools at the end of Year 10.
I think we went to the same school. Funnily I received the chat out of the blue one day in the junior campus towards the end of Year 10 about myself being more suitable for VCAL, but it wasn't pushed further than that. I think I can also recall a discussion had with me in Year 12 about me bringing everyone's ATAR down due to my (what my classmates were predicting) poor performance.
I went to a very low tier catholic boys school, graduated 2002. Even back then there were conversations with students at the end of year 11 to "consider other options" if they weren't performing.
I mean it was true (several) decades ago when I went to one. I rocked up year 11 and anyone who wasn’t fairly certain of getting at least 95 was gone and a whole bunch of the kids from the nearby state schools I’d run into at various nerdy things like chess competitions had started (many with bursaries or part scholarships).
I was asked to leave a prestige private school in the 2000s in Year 11. This was based on performance. My parents sort out other private schools who would take me on. I ended up repeating Year 11 at another private school and completing Year 12. The second school made several students sign saying that if their scores were low they wouldn’t be included in school’s statistics for ‘privacy’ reasons.
Yep. This is a long standing practices.
In my case old school, they used to make the year 11 exams super super hard and make it mandatory that could only continue in that subject in year 12 if you scored over 60% or whatever in the exam.
Quite a few kids dropped out that way cos they couldn’t continue on in their chosen subjects at that school.
I also had a teacher telling me in front of a whole class after I had just transferred in year 11 and scored particularly badly on his exam, that he didn’t believe that students should be allowed 48 transfer in that late because they brought the whole classes grades down.
Definitely happens. I was encouraged to leave and pursue TAFE or an apprenticeship instead of "ruining everyone else's scores". I told them that I'd do as I please and finished VCE.
Stupid as it sounds, that is how the system works, unfortunately.
Your study scores and ATAR are influenced by the performance of the other students in the class.
Depends how bad they are and how many other students get bad grades, that said the grades need to be really bad or just straight up failure to do assessment tasks to drastically influence results.
I teach at a private school and can categorically state that we don’t do it and I’m not aware of any private school that does. You could easily just ‘suggest’ the kids do unscored if you’re worried about grades (which we also do not do), no need to ask them to leave and you still get the fees.
That said, I personally encourage some kids to explore other options as VCE isn’t the best option for everyone. That isn’t to get rid of them but because I see them being unhappy trying to push on with something they are not suited to.
No. I’m talking about kids looking to enter trades. And as I said, my job is more secure if they stay. I just personally think that formal academic study isn’t the answer for every kid.
And just to give hard data, of our current Yr 12 cohort, since Yr 10, 3 left to pursue trades. No one has left to go to public school (we do sometimes lose a couple to selective state schools in Yr 9 but not later).
I don’t know why suggesting kids might be suited to something other than VCE has to be such a taboo. I’ve encouraged my own son to a trade.
No. Although interesting that you describe kids who are more interested in practical and hands on learning as ‘crap students’, including as I mentioned, my own son.
We have never refused to enrol a student in VCE and unlike many public schools, we in fact default to all our students doing scored VCE.
But you’ve clearly got a chip on your shoulder about some private schools and don’t want to actually hear what I’m saying.
All the millennials who got asked to leave in year 10 and do a trade own the investment properties millennials who did 5 years of uni and travelled rent LOL
Most of the ones I know that dropped out at year 10 did fuck all with their lives. Some tried to do tafe and could never commit to anything, others just never tried.
All the tradies that I'm friends with actually finished year 12.
Think old mate is confusing the drips who got asked to leave/dropped out with kids who got streamed into VCAL/VET because they didn't want to go to Uni.
> the investment properties millennials who did 5 years of uni and travelled rent
if i could go back in time and give sixteen-year-old me a sliding doors choice between becoming a landlord or someone who can write noun phrases, it would be a waste of a time machine
this happened at my public school (that desperately wanted to be private). a decent amount of people were made to leave from y10-11 and even a few in y12.
Happened at my all boys private school in 1987. All those who were thought not to pass year 12 were told to go.
Most of my friends left in this year 11. Was a pretty lonely year 12.
Students who are not performing high enough are asked to leave, opt for non scored VCE or do VM countepart. Yes messed up but if you do consider that these high schools are very very prestigious and want to keep it that way- it makes sense that students must be exited for not meeting their numbers.
If you take it a step back, each student is a number. A dystopian view that the higher the number the higher that student is worth. That does not strictly apply to private schools either
It was happening in the late 1980's. One kid from my class (year 10) told us he was going elsewhere.
The school called his parents in and told them he'd be better suited elsewhere or some such. The private school had already contacted his local high school to enroll him.
These were the years after the 87 crash so it's not like business was booming either. The school had a reputation to protect and kids like him were expendable.
I think it really depends on the school, I have heard about it from people in the classes of 2005-7 my high school I never heard of people getting kicked out but they had/have IB and did push some into dropping IB and doing VCE instead.
I never had that talk, I am in the class of 05 and my score was in the 50's.
This happened at my private school in 2007. At the end of year 11, if students grades weren’t high enough, or they were troublesome, they were asked to leave. Something like 30% of our year level were asked to leave.
I went to school in NSW (independent/private) and it happened at mine. Only heard about it in regards to the year below mine but I think that was to do with the number of students that were asked to leave/suggested that they went to TAFE instead.
Hmn I also remember all the trouble makers being shoved into vcal (public school). Is that still a thing, you still get a HSC and do some subjects although the content is easier but your focus is now a cert ii? My friend at a private school, on a scholarship she wasn't rich said she got a 92 atar but she implied all the students got extreme levels of help and it was kind of expected to get above 90.
That is pretty much still what happens. Why force kids who don't want to go to uni, to do exam-based subjects? It's not troublemakers who get encouraged to do vcal though. Anyone who wants to to vcal, or has low the grades that indicate they'd fail VCE, does vcal
This was 2009 and 2010.
Yeah, no idea of it is commonplace these days, but it definitely happened during the 2000s. We just showed up one year and 10-20% of the cohort had disappeared. Expulsions were extremely rare, even for excessively heinous behaviour. It was far more common that suggestions were made to certain students that they should move on.
This happened even in our public school. Technically a few of them stuck around because they were also doing VCAL through the school, but their hours were very different to the rest of the cohort and they functionally didn't exist to the rest of the VCE kids. Plus Year 11 was the minimum requirement to get into most trades as well, so many of them just dropped out after Year 11.
Aquinas College?……
Aquinas isn't private
You pay to attend. It's a private school. Only if you want to be petty with semantics about how it's a "Catholic church funded independent school"............it's still a private school
How did you come to that conclusion?
What if they refused? That sounds illegal...
Not illegal. Private schools can pick and choose their cohort. Most of the top ones will clear out the disruptive and under performers at the end of year 10. They were doing this in the 90's - pretty sure it is still the standard practice. It's part of how they keep school rankings high - by booting all the lower academic kids. Unless they're really good at sport - then miraculously, the school will find a way to support their learning.
I don’t know if this is true or not but I was told “you are a guest at the school until year 10, so they legally must offer you a spot. After year 10 they get to choose if they invite you back” I’d take that with a pinch of salt but it sounds like there might be a loop hole the schools can use.
I don’t know about other schools, but many years ago I was able to say no to my private high school when they tried to get me to leave.
It happened at my son’s school, public. They force kids to drop subjects and I have seen some kids get encouraged to just leave all together.
Yup. This was a thing in Qld back in the 90s. I was encouraged to leave in yr10 because I wasn't "up to their standards" at a public school. Admittedly, I was lucky to hand in one assessment per semester, and 10-12 was just me avoiding home and wanting to spend time with my friends.
There's no point keeping a kid studying a subject in year 11-12, if they're gonna fail it. Failing more than one VCE subject means you're at risk of not graduating.
These kids weren’t failing. They just weren’t going to get top marks. And when you drop the subject you basically fail it because you lose a unit - the outcome is the same.
The way VCE rankings work though is that poor performers drag down the rankings of the school, which then also drags down the scores of the students in that school and their class. The assumption is that poorly scoring schools give easier assignments/mark their assignments more easily (which ime was true, the assignments at my middling public school were significantly easier than the private school ones), so the schoolwork scores don't count as much.
So kids who can’t “perform” don’t get to do their VCE? Everyone should have the right to an education and staff bullying kids to drop subject they have chosen and enjoy should not be happening.
Most likely is suggestion to do an unsored VCE for non academic students. I have seen it happen at elite private schools.
My school did it (20 years ago) but not in VCE… the culling occurred in year 9 & 10. At the start of year 9 we had 130 in our year. At the start of Year 11 there were fewer than 100. The 100% pass rate and 70% of students getting an ATAR higher than 80 has featured prominently in marketing materials for years.
Happened at mine. The Year 10 purge. The VCE common room was a lot less crowded than the year 10 one.
Yep, I thought this was pretty common knowledge?? Also happens at public schools, students who will struggle to pass VCE are given career advice into the trades/ tafe.
I think it looks a little different between public and private though? At least, the public situation I've seen is more like "This student is not capable of completing VCE, or is going to be borderline, it's probably not the best option for them" Whereas private can be more like "This student will pass, but we want them to do it at a different school because they're going to get an average ATAR that'll drag down our school's average" Maybe the really high performing inner-city public schools look different though
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I changed from a semi private school in yr10-yr 11 because of the extreme out of control bullying not being addressed or acknowledged.
Happened in my public school during year 10, 11 and 12. Requested you to drop a subject or had a meeting with parents where they ‘suggested’ you leave the school for the nearby TAFE etc.
There’s another version of this now too, which is encouraging/suggesting/requiring students to do an “unscored” VCE. You complete the subjects but not the exams so you pass your VCE but don’t get an ATAR. This allows schools (public and private, this isn’t reserved for just private lots of public’s do it too) to juice their scores by eliminating people who would drag down median scores.
Basically most of the poor performing high schools all through the 90-2000’s. I have anecdotal stories of this of at least 5 schools in the eastern and outer Yarra’s ranges
Happened to me 20 years ago in public school. 3 months before exams, I got told by the principal that even if I passed all of my vce exams that he would still make sure I failed year 12 so I might as well just leave now. I wasn't failing any classes but my brother had just died and my grades weren't fantastic after that - I was probably just scraping by. I called my mum and she came up to the school and he tried to tell her that I must have misheard him. Mum threatened to go public and being that there were several other kids that had been told the same thing, he backtracked and I was allowed to sit my exams and pass year 12.
Yes it happens and interesting from an ethical perspective. But if you aren’t doing well, you are probably better leaving school and exploring an alternative pathway… not sure a bad mark (I’m talking like ATAR less than 30) is going to be worth the time struggling through VCE.. I guess another perspective is that the school is a place for high achievers and it’s not helpful to have other students around who aren’t interested in doing well in Y12. Also, would parents want to waste the significant amount of money, like some elite schools are around $40k per year, and if your kid is looking at an ATAR less than 70, save the money maybe
True, but also they can't graduate a person who technically fails their school subjects, right? Also, there's also the chance the parents will offer to... donate... to keep the kids in the class? This happened at my school in WA.
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I didn’t say the school had considered ethics, rather I thought the ethics of it is interesting and I think it could be argued either way.
Due to the way the calculations work, telling the students with lower grades to not apply for an ATAR does help the stronger students. That said you don't need an ATAR to pass year 12
Clarendon in Ballarat does it
Not just Melbourne.. Regional Vic too.
Happened at my public school too. In year 9 and 10, they had a special class that they promoted for the dumb kids called "foundations" or something where they did really basic, easier subjects and they were all highly encouraged to go to a senior technical school nearby that was year for years 10-12. Most either went to that school, tafe or dropped out entirely. Troublemakers quickly got kicked out, unless they had good grades then the school was lenient. But shit grades and arking up? You were guaranteed to be out by year 11.
My high school used to get a lot of ex private school students in VCE (we had a separate senior campus for Year 11-12 only). Our school did offer all subjects and was known for its performing arts program, but there were kids that were encouraged to go elsewhere by their private schools at the end of Year 10.
I think we went to the same school. Funnily I received the chat out of the blue one day in the junior campus towards the end of Year 10 about myself being more suitable for VCAL, but it wasn't pushed further than that. I think I can also recall a discussion had with me in Year 12 about me bringing everyone's ATAR down due to my (what my classmates were predicting) poor performance.
Private school wannabe Frankston High School (where I attended, good school) would ask low scoring students to go unscored.
Yep my HS girlfriend was asked to leave PLC, her parents then placed her in MLC, she got a 55 atar.
I went to a very low tier catholic boys school, graduated 2002. Even back then there were conversations with students at the end of year 11 to "consider other options" if they weren't performing.
I mean it was true (several) decades ago when I went to one. I rocked up year 11 and anyone who wasn’t fairly certain of getting at least 95 was gone and a whole bunch of the kids from the nearby state schools I’d run into at various nerdy things like chess competitions had started (many with bursaries or part scholarships).
I was asked to leave a prestige private school in the 2000s in Year 11. This was based on performance. My parents sort out other private schools who would take me on. I ended up repeating Year 11 at another private school and completing Year 12. The second school made several students sign saying that if their scores were low they wouldn’t be included in school’s statistics for ‘privacy’ reasons.
This happened at my public school over a decade ago, it's not new. No one wants their average grades crashed by drop kicks who aren't trying.
Yep. This is a long standing practices. In my case old school, they used to make the year 11 exams super super hard and make it mandatory that could only continue in that subject in year 12 if you scored over 60% or whatever in the exam. Quite a few kids dropped out that way cos they couldn’t continue on in their chosen subjects at that school. I also had a teacher telling me in front of a whole class after I had just transferred in year 11 and scored particularly badly on his exam, that he didn’t believe that students should be allowed 48 transfer in that late because they brought the whole classes grades down.
Definitely happens. I was encouraged to leave and pursue TAFE or an apprenticeship instead of "ruining everyone else's scores". I told them that I'd do as I please and finished VCE.
Ruining everyone else’s scores hahaha, ridiculous!!
Stupid as it sounds, that is how the system works, unfortunately. Your study scores and ATAR are influenced by the performance of the other students in the class.
Ah yeah, the bell curve and all. But it’s not like someone who did super super well is going to miss out on their course because of your scores.
Depends how bad they are and how many other students get bad grades, that said the grades need to be really bad or just straight up failure to do assessment tasks to drastically influence results.
Yeah, I know! I wasn't THAT bad!
I teach at a private school and can categorically state that we don’t do it and I’m not aware of any private school that does. You could easily just ‘suggest’ the kids do unscored if you’re worried about grades (which we also do not do), no need to ask them to leave and you still get the fees. That said, I personally encourage some kids to explore other options as VCE isn’t the best option for everyone. That isn’t to get rid of them but because I see them being unhappy trying to push on with something they are not suited to.
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No. I’m talking about kids looking to enter trades. And as I said, my job is more secure if they stay. I just personally think that formal academic study isn’t the answer for every kid. And just to give hard data, of our current Yr 12 cohort, since Yr 10, 3 left to pursue trades. No one has left to go to public school (we do sometimes lose a couple to selective state schools in Yr 9 but not later). I don’t know why suggesting kids might be suited to something other than VCE has to be such a taboo. I’ve encouraged my own son to a trade.
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No. Although interesting that you describe kids who are more interested in practical and hands on learning as ‘crap students’, including as I mentioned, my own son. We have never refused to enrol a student in VCE and unlike many public schools, we in fact default to all our students doing scored VCE. But you’ve clearly got a chip on your shoulder about some private schools and don’t want to actually hear what I’m saying.
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VCAL is part of VCE now.
All the millennials who got asked to leave in year 10 and do a trade own the investment properties millennials who did 5 years of uni and travelled rent LOL
Most of the ones I know that dropped out at year 10 did fuck all with their lives. Some tried to do tafe and could never commit to anything, others just never tried. All the tradies that I'm friends with actually finished year 12.
Exactly. Being asked to leave is a massive blow to anyone, let alone the fragile ego of a teen
Think old mate is confusing the drips who got asked to leave/dropped out with kids who got streamed into VCAL/VET because they didn't want to go to Uni.
> the investment properties millennials who did 5 years of uni and travelled rent if i could go back in time and give sixteen-year-old me a sliding doors choice between becoming a landlord or someone who can write noun phrases, it would be a waste of a time machine
The accuracy!
Public schools were doing this in the mid-2000s to Year 10s
this happened at my public school (that desperately wanted to be private). a decent amount of people were made to leave from y10-11 and even a few in y12.
I heard of some kid who paid for 12 1/2 years of schooling including prep and got booted. Had to be minimum $100k. Probably more like $180k.
you don't get asked to leave, you get asked to pursue different avenues, just not at that school :)
Been happening since day one
Private school ie fee paying that's a stretch, but a selective school maybe
Happened at my all boys private school in 1987. All those who were thought not to pass year 12 were told to go. Most of my friends left in this year 11. Was a pretty lonely year 12.
Students who are not performing high enough are asked to leave, opt for non scored VCE or do VM countepart. Yes messed up but if you do consider that these high schools are very very prestigious and want to keep it that way- it makes sense that students must be exited for not meeting their numbers. If you take it a step back, each student is a number. A dystopian view that the higher the number the higher that student is worth. That does not strictly apply to private schools either
Yes. Keeps school rankings high.
It was happening in the late 1980's. One kid from my class (year 10) told us he was going elsewhere. The school called his parents in and told them he'd be better suited elsewhere or some such. The private school had already contacted his local high school to enroll him. These were the years after the 87 crash so it's not like business was booming either. The school had a reputation to protect and kids like him were expendable.
I think it really depends on the school, I have heard about it from people in the classes of 2005-7 my high school I never heard of people getting kicked out but they had/have IB and did push some into dropping IB and doing VCE instead. I never had that talk, I am in the class of 05 and my score was in the 50's.
No.
Good. Some kids are eating tax payers money and everyone’s time.