[=Araminta=]

Anyone have kids at Candlebark in Romsey? It is run by popular teen author John Marsden, interested in feedback.

[MelbChick]

Me too. Strangely quiet here.......

[cheerilee]

It looks awesome on the website. We may be moving over that way and would be very interested in looking at the school. It does say they have a waiting list for most grades and can only have 100 students, but that was in 2010.

[mintjoolips]

My kids have been there for five years, it works incredibly well for them they just love it. It also is very much aligned with my parenting beliefs and values.

Apart from prep wait list is really not as long as you would think.

I also love that the fees include EVERYTHING, even lunch (super fab for a working mum).

Macedon Ranges is a great place to live as well. Lots of great value property.

[mintjoolips]

Oh how funny I just realized that original post back in 2009 was by me!!!! Well we went we looked and kids have been very happy since.

Freaky like writing a letter to your future self!

[cheerilee]

I didn't even notice the 2009 in the OP.
Thanks for your feedback, I will be talking to my partner about it if we do move over that way.

Where do the students come from to attend?

[mintjoolips]

Macedon ranges area, sunbury, few from Melbourne and castlemaine/bendigo.

[Indi]

I have a number of friends who have pulled their children out of the school for various reasons - ironically the reading program being sub standard is one of them. From my experience (albeit not personal but close friends with kids same age as mine) the practice does not live up to the theory.

[mintjoolips]

I guess you cannot please everyone all the time and finding the right school for the individual child can be tricky. However dd1 has been there since prep and scored well above average on her Naplans, her classmates the majority who have been there since prep their parents also feel similarly.

The reading program used is the same at fitzroy community school which was one of the top three schools in Victoria last year.

The school has so much to offer and it is such a rich and diverse education it is a shame sometimes people do not see the bigger picture.

In my PERSONAL experience over five years now the school exceeds all they could put into practice and more.

[Indi]

Of course with children at the school you have a different perspective to someone who is simply comparing what my children do at their school compared to my friends' children (at the same year level as mine) at Candlebark.

I was truly surprised as I think the school offers (on paper anyway) an excellent educational philosophy. Interestingly I have a fiend with kids at the Fitzroy Community School and her boys (a few years older than my girls so hard to compare directly) have had a vastly different educational experience than the children I knew at Candlebark (go figure when the program is the same). I am also bemused that a school that prides itself on an emphasis on literacy has such poor Naplan results - all the local primary achieve higher results and the Fitzroy Community School is streets ahead. There appears to be a huge difference in what is actually happening compared to what the school's publicity would like people to believe.

Education aside, I would be furious at a school that does see an issue with a 6 year old boy coming in after lunch without his shoes. 6 pairs of shoes lost in a term??