Dear Editor,
Victoria, following overseas trends commenced merging schools into larger precincts in 2005, based on a 1991 study rejected in Australia at the time. Before and during 2008 and 2009, many studies were done in both the USA and UK, which showed conclusively that smaller schools performed better in areas of academic outcome, behaviour, discipline, mental health, welfare and safety, resulting in both countries dismantling the larger schools and returning to smaller models. In Chicago in 2001, one large school was to be split up into 15 to 20 smaller schools. The UK studies called for the push from political parties to cease merging and to put a stop to “larger failing schools.” All found that small schools are associated with better outcomes for disadvantaged or socio-economic status with no negative effects for others. Melbourne University research found student achievement increased among student populations of up to 900 students and then dropped with increasing school size. No studies since 1991 have shown any conclusive evidence to back up the claims that larger schools produce better outcomes.
NAPLAN results between 2011 and 2018 of five merged Victorian Schools, Lowanna College (1994-861 students), Dandenong High School (2007-1785), Kyabram P-12 College (2009-1200), Hume Central Secondary College (2008-1072) and Victoria University Secondary College (2010/2011-927), indicated that with all the promoted advantages, they did not perform as well as Wanganui Park with none, against schools of a similar size. The merged schools had either a steady decline and were substantially below average by 2018 or showed no improvement; Victoria University Secondary College was generally close to average with both above and below average in some subjects, as was Wanganui Park.
VUSC improved between 2013 and 2016, but declined after that with subjects below average in 2017/2018, while WPSC performed consistently, with all subjects close to average in 2018. Nationally, all of the above schools did not perform well, several showing a steady decline. WPSC had six subjects below average and four substantially below average, while VUSC had four subjects below average, one close to average and five substantially below average. One that did perform well after merging in 2010 was William Ruthven Secondary College a small school with 396 students who performed better than larger merged schools.
In VCE results Wanganui Park achieved 2.3 percent in 40+ results; Dandenong 0.7 percent and Victoria University 2.5 percent. Median scores were 27, 23, and 26 respectively. In NAPLAN ranking, Wanganui Park (372) outperformed both Victoria University (410) and Dandenong Secondary (513) Colleges.
Merged super schools are not working and they want to give us one school, the largest in the state. To compensate they are going to take students from small schools, place them in a really large school, but split them up into smaller schools because they acknowledge that smaller schools are a better environment for learning.
Yours sincerely,
Cherril Colleen Jones
Shepparton.
