[sonicbeagle]

Hi Guys!

Just want to know what your experiences have been with any of these schools: The Essington School, Milkwood Steiner School and St Mary's Catholic Primary School Darwin.

We're moving up very soon, and I'd love to hear what your experiences have been like if you've sent your kids to these schools.

Thanks!

[Rastasdog]

My two kids went to Essington from preschool, during that time the school has expanded to include middle and senior years. On the whole it is a great school - does tend to be a little elitist and has had issues with bullying. Consistently gets great NapPlan results - usually first or second across all age groups.

[hamiriver]

St Mary's will be having a change of principal for the next year, along with a few more staff changes. Regarded as a good school in the city. It is small and doesn't have a lot of space, and older facilities, but has a communitynfeelmto it. Religious values are evident in mass every week etc

Essinngton growing and hard to get into. Not sure really about earlier bullying comment, as it is not alone in dealing with this issue, and I heard its not actually worse here. In fact it seems to be acted on quite quickly. Some issues with not so friendly admin people I believe. Educationally it is a school that delivers.


Milkwood is very very small and incomparable to the other two.

[teenie]

My son is in early primary years, at Essington. Not sure about the bullying comment personally, though would worry about this as an issue at a few other local schools. We absolutely love Essington.... Good academic program, good music program... And I guess compared to other trully elitist schools in large cities "down south" I think it does have somewhat of a broad range of families (is not just all white collar professionals for parents), the common denominator is that all the families seem to have a vested interest in their children's education. I think it is a school in which children can excel.

[cjk76]

My daughter is in Essington pre-transition, but my younger half-brother goes there he is 13 and my older two brothers went there who are now in their late 20's ( they were some of the first students in the school). It's a great school but the list is MASSIVE especially in the early childhood years. I put this bub on the list when I was 6 months pregnant and same with DS. I have never heard of reports of bullying from Essington - and I know the cases they do have they come down very hard on them ( I know some of the staff). It can be Elitist but that is only a few parents who I think , think they should be that way as they are at Essignton- in general they are like me. Normal, middle class, hard working parents. I like it as it is part of the Montessori education system and the principle looks at what is happening on an international level not just a local or national level.

This post has been edited by cjk76: 07/03/2013, 11:13 PM