Melbourne Schools Podcast

Crystal: Hi parents, welcome to the Melbourne Schools Podcast. Today I have a friend of mine, Dexter, who is a dad of three kids, all of whom go to different schools – Mazenod, Avila, and St Simon’s, a Catholic Primary School. Mazenod and Avila are both Catholic Secondary Schools that have a great reputation and come up all the time in the Melbourne Schools Facebook group. Today I’m particularly interested in Mazenod because it’s a boy school, which means I’m very unlikely ever to visit because I’m a mom of an only girl. Mazenod is an all boys Catholic Secondary School out in the Southeastern suburb of Mulgrave in Melbourne. Dexter, welcome to the podcast.

Dexter: Thanks Crystal.

Crystal: So to start off, just tell me about your kids, their ages or grades, and the schools that they go to.

Dexter: Yeah, so I have three kids. My youngest is in grade six and she is at St Simon’s.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: She is 12 years old. My boy is 14 and he is in year eight at Mazenod.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: And my eldest is 17 and she is in year 11 at Avila.

Crystal: Ah cool, so you’ve got quite the selection of Catholic schools in the area.

Dexter: Yes, yes, and next year my youngest will be going to Avila with her sister.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah. So we’re gonna just chat about Mazenod tonight, because I think maybe Avila we’ll do in another episode. So how did you choose Mazenod?

Dexter: Mazenod was on our radar from the beginning. My nephew went there, my wife’s nephew went there as well, my cousins have gone there. I probably know at least a dozen people that have gone there, right from my age, so mid-40s, all the way to people that have graduated only a couple of years ago.

Crystal: Oh okay.

Dexter: And all of the people that we know that have gone through it have turned out to be really nice, you know, really nice people. They’ve got their head screwed on, they’re respectful. So Mazenod was high up there in terms of the schools that we were wanting to send our son to. St. Joe’s I think was the other option that we had for single-sex boy schools.

Crystal: And where’s that, sorry?

Dexter: St Joe’s? Ferntree Gully.

Crystal: Ah okay, yep, yep, yep.

Dexter: So it’s also close to us because we’re in Rowville.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: And prior to that, I think we looked at Nazareth as an option in Noble Park, and we looked at Emmaus. So before my eldest started to go to Avila, so when she was in grade six, we looked at the co-ed stuff first, and based off where she went would probably dictate where my son was going to go.

Look, with all of the schools, including Mazenod and Avila, you’re going to hear good stories and bad stories. It’s just got feel as well. So when my eldest went to Avila, then naturally it’s like, let’s take a closer look at Mazenod, even though it was probably more of the school that we were going to go anyway, regardless of whether we were going to go with Avila or a co-ed school.

So the reason why we chose that was because it had a good reputation, we knew a bunch of people that went to it, the stories that we heard of it—even the bad stories, like there were hardly any, honestly, there’s the odd one here or there—access to public transport to get there from where I live. There were a lot more pros to sending him there than basically any other school, any other Catholic School.

Crystal: Yeah, so ticked a lot of the boxes.

Dexter: Oh yeah, yeah. I think that’s quite unusual for someone to know so many people that come out of a school.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah. Look, it’s… I’ve grown up in Rowville pretty much all my life, and a lot of my friends are still within the area as well. So it’s a case of where, you know, my immediate friendship group was just basically Rowville Secondary—that’s where I went.

And being Filipino, you know, you tend to hang around other people of the same kind of ethnicity, same interests in music, and they happen to go to all of these other schools like Nazareth and Mazenod. And that’s kind of how I started to know these people from other schools. And on top of that, my wife’s family, their sons, their boys from that side went there as well.

Crystal: So your… did you say that your friends’ kids also went there? Like, you know some of your friends’ kids there?

Dexter: There’s people that I hang out with that went there, there’s family on both my side and my wife’s side that actually attended Mazenod as well. I have a family member that actually works at Mazenod, and he actually went to Mazenod as well.

Crystal: Oh wow, okay, so you know the school quite intimately.

Dexter: So there’s a lot of connections.

Crystal: So through multiple generations, it seems like.

Dexter: Yeah, yep.

Crystal: Oh okay. Yeah, no, I think that’s quite unusual because when, from my experience and my friend circle experience, when we’re choosing schools, often we don’t know anyone from the school and it’s all hearsay, you know. Like you’ve got to find out a bit about the school culture and stuff by trying to, you know, ask on Facebook. Really, that’s why people were asking everybody else on Facebook. To know so many people to come from the same school is really, yeah, it’s really good. I mean, that’s really ideal, the way that you should choose the school, I think.

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, and look, we’ve been happy with pretty much all of our choices, really, from primary school to both the high schools now. And the only kind of caveat that we had with the schools is, you know, if they fell in with a bad friendship group, then that would probably be the only incentive for us to actually remove them. But we’ve had no issues. Avila has been really good, Mazenod has been awesome, and even St. Simon’s as well, even though, you know, my youngest is there for, you know, less than six months. All of my kids went there from prep to grade six.

Crystal: So in St. Simon’s?

Dexter: Yeah.

Crystal: Oh okay, yeah, yeah. So your son’s been at Mazenod for two years, is that right?

Dexter: He’ll have… you’ll have to excuse me, I always get their ages and their years mixed up, it goes so fast. So I think I might have told a lie. I think he’s actually in year nine and doing year 10 next year.

Crystal: Oh right, so three years.

Dexter: I think that makes sense. So he started… you know, it’s so hard, it’s so hard. They keep growing, isn’t it?

Crystal: He’s been there at least two years, put it that way, most likely three.

Dexter: Yeah, okay, and you know, if my wife ever hears it, she’s going to kill me, but it is what it is.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: So look, he’s been there for a while. He came over with a large group of friends from St. Simon’s, and he still hangs out with most of them. Look, he still hangs out with his friends from primary school that have gone to other schools, but he still hangs out obviously still hangs out with the kids at Mazenod, and they’re a great group of friends. So we’re super happy with that.

Education-wise, it’s been really good, no complaints really. The teachers are quick to pull them up in terms of if he’s falling behind or if he’s slacking or if he’s not trying as hard as he should. They’re quick to let us know.

Crystal: Oh okay, so they’re pretty proactive, would you say?

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, they’re pretty proactive. We get emails a lot about test results, and I find that I’m probably more aware of what’s happening with him at Mazenod than my daughter at Avila, just because of all of the emails that I get. I’m just having a look at my phone now. We’ll get test results, we’ll get, you know, there’s quite a lot of correspondence through email.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: So that’s pretty good. And you know, the parent-teacher interviews, look, they’re okay. A lot of it’s happening through Zoom, and they only go for, you know, a couple of minutes, if that. I’m quite aware of where he sits educationally, and I’m different from other parents. I don’t like to push him too much.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: At the same time, if he’s a bit slack, I’ll let him know about it. Like, we just, you know, received NAPLAN results I think it was just the other day, and he was actually quite good. It was surprising.

Crystal: No way.

Dexter: We were… because it’s… and he’s always been the same ever since he was in Primary School. And this just could be a boy thing or it just could be just my son, but I think that he’s capable of doing really, really well. It’s just application to, you know, to want to do something. So when we received the NAPLAN results, we’re all like, “Hey, this is what we thought.” It’s not like we were expecting the worst, it’s just, “Oh, okay, we’re pleasantly surprised.”

So the education, we’ve been pretty happy with. The school runs a lot of awareness-based events, so things like bullying, cyber, dealing with your son, you know, during sort of during the later teenage years. They write a lot of things, and they try and get things—well, they’re a bit more proactive from what I see.

And I’m not comparing them to Avila because it’s a bit different, and it’s comparison of, you know, a couple of years ahead versus a couple of years behind. But I just feel that I’ve attended more things with Mazenod than with Avila.

Crystal: Like parent stuff?

Dexter: Yeah, parent stuff. They’ll get us to come in to the gym, and they’ll be talking about, you know, signs of bullying or signs of your son might be a bully, something those lines. So it’s been good. Like, we’re super happy with how he’s gone so far—the friends he’s made, the education. We’ve seen the test results, we’ve seen the work that’s been given to him. He could probably do with a bit more discipline, but that’s us, you know, in terms of being at home and doing the work.

Crystal: Yeah, not so much school.

Dexter: It’s not so much the school, it’s more so the school is giving him the work. It’s really up to us to try and, you know, to do it when you should instead of cramming it the night before.

Crystal: Yeah, I think that’s probably, you know, many, many teenagers, not your son only.

Dexter: Yeah, yeah.

Crystal: So would you say, so you’d say that there was quite a good community feel with the school? Like, it sounds like you know, with like lots of kids from the surrounding suburbs that go there.

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of kids that go there. They’re all the same… you know, being a Catholic School, it’s very one-sided to Italians, Sri Lankans, Filipinos, a lot of the mainly Catholic types of nationalities that you would would see there. There are obviously Australians there as well, but they’re probably in the minority. And they all seem to get along fine.

Like I said, you know, Carson’s group of friends, that’s fine. His group of friends are great. I’ve met them, I’ve met their parents. They hang out a lot. They, you know, they’re at that stage now where they’re wanting to do things on their own, ride their bikes, and I guess, like I said, that was the one thing that would only make us change schools is if they got into the wrong crowd. And thankfully, that hasn’t happened. His friends are over a lot more now, he’s over at his friends’, they’re really, really good kids.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: And I think between them, you know, if there’s anything that is going wrong at school, they can kind of talk amongst themselves about it initially rather than, say, try and approach us.

Crystal: Yeah, because they might feel ashamed or they might feel like, “Oh, you know, I’m going have to ask this math question again.”

Dexter: So it’s been really good. And, you know, seeing him grow up with his other friends and start to do things that isn’t just sort of sitting in front of the computer—don’t get me wrong, they still do that—but they’re now at that age where they’re a bit older, and I think all of the parents of his friends are now allowing them to just to do stuff outside of the house, and then they can just go wherever they want. He’s at the stage now where he’s getting a bit more confident with public transport, so he’ll just hop onto a bus, you know, with all of his friends, and they’ll just end up at the shops somewhere.

Crystal: Oh, it’s so good that they live close by. I mean, I think that’s a real benefit, having them in the same suburbs because they can do that.

Dexter: That’s another thing as well. That’s a good point, and a lot of people, I don’t think really think of that. With three kids, it’s been interesting having to… again, it comes down to your kid as well and like what sort of friends they have, how many friends they’ve got. But the further you live away from the school, the more you drive around.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: And it’s hard because you’ll have some friends that, you know, they might live, you know, 5 or 10 minutes away from the school. But if you’re 15 to 20 minutes away from that school, like in, say, Rowville, then you have to drive them all the way there. And then you obviously want them to stay with their friends and hang out. So there’s a weird period there before they can start catching public transport where you do a lot of driving around. There’s parties and, you know, there’s a whole bunch of stuff.

Crystal: And even like school stuff, like, you know, going back to school for events and everything.

Dexter: Yeah.

Crystal: No, I heard that, and I think that’s something that’s really not talked about enough. Because when I… I think when parents choose a school, you know, they think what about the results or the facilities or, you know, so many other things. But maybe the one close by is the best one.

Dexter: Well, look, there’s a lot to be said about that sort of stuff because, you know, my eldest, she’s working now. I think she’s worked now for over a year, and she just works locally. And she’s at Avila. So there are certain things where, you know, when you get to that age of wanting to work and you’re catching public transport, there are those sorts of things that you have to think about where it’s like, “Well, I can’t start work until this time because the bus gets in at this time.” You know, it kind of actually limits a lot of things because you’re spending quite a lot of time on a commute, either getting to school or going home. And that’s just going home. In the mornings, it’s the same thing. You know, you might have to get up an hour earlier just so that you can make it to school on time.

Crystal: Yeah, but you’re also very lucky though. Like, I mean, to have such a good school in your area and, like, you know, multiple good schools. It seems like your boy and your girl are in different good schools. I mean, I think… I don’t think all suburbs in Melbourne do have that. So there’s an element of you living in the right place.

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, and look, and look, we’re fortunate in that way. And I think even if we were a couple of suburbs out, there’s a lot of Catholic schools. But we would then have to resort to services like yours to find out which school we would go to, because, again, you know, it’s always best to have information from people that go there quite recently as well. Because, you know, like I said before, schools like Nazareth, they’re perfect now, but they were like almost the pinnacle of schools within my area back when I was going through to school.

Crystal: Oh, really?

Dexter: You know what I mean? So you can’t ask a person that has gone to a school like five years ago.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: It has to be quite current. Where it was like… so we’ve been blessed. And even still, if those, you know, if Avila and Mazenod, if they weren’t up to task, you know, there’s St. Joe’s. Killester is like the sister to that. We could have revisited Nazareth again. We could have looked at Emmaus. And they’re still within, you know, a single bus ride away. So they’re easily accessible through public transport.

Crystal: Yeah, I think we’re quite blessed. I think out in the East where both of us live, I think there’s quite a lot of choice. And as a parent, you know, you could, you sometimes you get a bit picky about what you want in a school. But in fact, there’s actually so many schools that are really good where we are.

So, with back to Mazenod, what kind of school would you say it is? Like, is there a particular sort of dominant culture there? Like, would you say that it’s an arty sort of school or like sporty? Are your kids into…

Dexter: It’s a weird school in that I think many people associate Mazenod as a sporting school because—and this is going to get a bit confusing because I still get confused by it also—there are a lot of sporting clubs that have “Mazenod” in their name, yet they’re not actually related to the school.

Crystal: Oh, because they use the facilities as, say, their home ground or their home court?

Dexter: So we’re like the Mazenod Volleyball Club, but they’re not actually part of the Mazenod school. Like, they’ll have like a girls volleyball club. I think my daughter played volleyball there once at one stage.

Crystal: They’re made up from Community people from the community. They’re not actually…

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, or from other schools.

Crystal: Oh.

Dexter: So it’s a school that a lot of people know because of that fact. They’ll be like, “Oh, you play for Mazenod?” “Yeah, I play for Mazenod.” But it’s like, “You go to the school?” “Like, no, not really, it’s just part of the club.”

So it’s known for that. For me, I put it to the people that have gone through it, and that’s what my feeling is of the people that have actually graduated through there that I know. And a lot of them have got on to do great things. So I can’t say that it’s just an academic school. I can’t say that it’s just a sporting school.

Crystal: Like it’s hard to…

Dexter: So pretty much everything.

Crystal: They pretty much…

Dexter: Yeah, like it’s… it, look, to be honest, I think it’s easily one of the best boy schools in the area, if not the best.

Crystal: In terms of academics or in terms of…

Dexter: I don’t know, it’s the best in general.

Crystal: Yeah, look, I’ve had friends that have had their kids shift from, like, from one school to another to Mazenod, and, you know, it could really come down to like a bad teacher at the old school. So I don’t know what it is, but I just find that there are less… there’s less drama. I’m not saying it’s free from drama, but it’s a school that you rarely hear anything bad about. Like, there’s no issues with kids or teachers. And I’m not going to say it’s going to be like that forever, but I tend not to hear as many things.

Crystal: Like toxic masculinity issues?

Dexter: Yeah, look, my kids would tell me because my kids tell me stuff about all the other schools because, you know, at my age, my friends’ kids are roughly the same age as well. And they all, and a lot of them still live in the same area. It’s a real talk. So they’ll say stuff about that school and stuff about that school.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah.

Dexter: And it’s usually firsthand experience because it’s like their daughter goes to that school and they’re friends with that person. You know, it’s not like, “I heard on the grapevine,” it’s like, “Hey, this happened at school today because I was there.”

Crystal: Yep.

Dexter: You know, so it’s… and with Mazenod, there just isn’t that many bad things. And my kids would tell me too. You know, it’s not like they’re trying to hide bad stuff that goes in the school. Like, we, you know, we have heard stories as well, but it’s bad compared to what we’ve heard about the other ones.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah, it does seem to fly under the radar a bit.

Dexter: It does, yeah. That’s probably a good description of it.

Crystal: Yeah, because that’s kind of, that’s kind of what you want. I think, at least what I want.

Dexter: Yeah, like, you know…

Crystal: Want to be in the news, right? I mean, that’s not…

Dexter: Oh, no, definitely not. Usually that’s not a good thing when the school’s in the news.

Crystal: Yeah. In terms of… so yeah, we’ve heard a lot about what you love. Is there anything that you don’t… is there anything that you don’t like about the school?

Dexter: What don’t I like about the school? That’s a weird question.

Crystal: Um…

Dexter: Look, it’s nothing that isn’t just an act of, say, you know, teenage rebellion in a way. And the same thing goes for most similar schools, whether it be boy schools or girl schools, like uniform policies, haircuts. I guess that…

Crystal: Do you mean that they’re strict or they’re not?

Dexter: They’re quite strict.

Crystal: Oh, they’re strict.

Dexter: Yeah, and I guess that’s part of why the boys that come out of that school are the way that they are, because they are taught to be a little bit more disciplined. Shake their hands, address people as Mr. Ms., and, you know, this… for a better word, they’re kind of groomed in a way that once they come out from Year 12, there’s a level of respect there is what I feel anyway.

And that could be a good or a bad thing. I’d like it… I’d like it if there was a bit more expression, honestly. I feel that there’s, you know, it stifles a bit of creativity perhaps. I just… I just like to, you know, at certain ages, you know, the kids are going to want to be who they are in a way, but then they’re like, “I’ve got to wear this uniform, I’ve got to…”

Crystal: You mean…

Dexter: Just everything, really. But honestly, that’s just such a tiny gripe.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah, and I’m just sort of picking at straws. Like, everything else is fine. The facilities are great. Access to it by public transport is perfect. Even driving there, it’s close for me. It’s like I really like… as a school for my son, I really can’t fault it. Like, even the fees, they’re not over the top by any means. They’re quite affordable, you know, especially compared to, say, private schools, which are just a crazy amount.

Just trying to think…

Crystal: It’s okay if you don’t think of anything that you dislike.

Dexter: Yeah, look, nothing apart from the things that, you know, about my opinion of school in general. But no, as a school for what’s available in the area, even if we would extend the area out a bit more, we would still… we would still send him there.

Crystal: When you said before there is a bit of a… like, would you say there was a bit of a culture of respect when the kids come out, they’re quite respectful? Like, how do you think they’ve done that? Like, how do you think they’ve taught them that?

Dexter: I think it is part of what I was saying before, how I was complaining about there’s no creativity in the… You know, they… And I think that also comes down to things like, I’m saying how I get a lot of emails from whenever he does a test. I pretty much get the results the next day. I’ll be an email, and it’s like, “Carson has done this test,” and or that or this test here, and I can click on it and see it straight away.

So it’s almost like there’s not much waiting to find out. Like, firstly, you know, if I didn’t have that sort of awareness or exposure to his results, I wouldn’t know what he’s been doing. You know, he could have done a dozen tests for all I know. And in some schools, I think most schools don’t even send parents the results. You know, it’s just the assumption. So I could be sitting here thinking that he’s not done any tests, but I know exactly what he’s done because I’ll get emails for it. And then I’ll click on it, and then I’ll say, “Hey, why did you only get like 40% on this test?”

Crystal: It sounds like they’re under a tight rein.

Dexter: Yeah, so there’s a lot of that. And I think there’s the way that they’re taught to address their teachers and shake hands. It’s almost…

Crystal: Yeah, it’s almost like…

Dexter: I would say it’s like a finishing school, but they kind of taught a lot of this stuff early on in…

Crystal: Okay, yeah, yeah, in terms of how to talk to, you know, be respectful.

Dexter: Okay, yeah.

Crystal: Were you saying that they all stand up or something in the when the teachers arrive?

Dexter: Yeah, remember, and they still carry that through to basically, you know, the person that I know that works there, he’s in his mid-20s now, he still does exactly the same thing. And now all the students do it to him.

Crystal: Yeah.

Dexter: So it’s pretty much ingrained into them since they were young, maybe.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it’s, yeah, it’s a good school. It’s a good school. And look, Avila, being the sister school, is it’s just as good as well. It’s just different sorts of exposure.

Crystal: Yeah. With that, being a Catholic School, do you find that there’s many non-Catholics that go there, or is it…

Dexter: Yeah, there is, there is.

Crystal: Okay, yeah.

Dexter: So from what I understand, and again, I don’t… I don’t look too much to the curriculum. I’m just sort of going by what my eldest just said. When you get to a certain level of education with Catholic schools, it goes beyond just learning about, say, the Bible and God and that sort of stuff. And it starts to encompass everything else, like a lot of other religions.

Crystal: Okay.

Dexter: And just information about it. It’s not telling you to, like, worship them or anything like that. It’s just teaching you about other stuff.

Crystal: Teaching you about it. Yeah, that’s a great thing, isn’t it?

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, so it’s still there as a subject, but it becomes a lot more broad. And I think it then doesn’t alienate as many people that aren’t, you know, religious or aren’t Catholic or anything like that.

Crystal: Okay, so there’s a number… so you would say there’s a significant percentage…

Dexter: I would say… Oh, you’re not…

Crystal: I would have to say it’s… I wouldn’t say it’s like half or anything like that, but I would maybe say a third or a quarter.

Crystal: Really?

Dexter: It’s the thing is, I’d probably err on the smaller side. There is… there is a process, like there’s an ideal process to go to these schools. And it’s not just Mazenod, it’s like a lot of Catholic schools.

Crystal: Like a hierarchy of…

Dexter: There’s a hierarchy, yeah. If you’re a feed school, if you’ve got siblings that are already there, or you’ve had a relative that’s gone through there, you know, if you’re, if you are indeed Catholic. And so that could actually put a lot of people off in terms of sending their kid to a Catholic school that is non-Catholic.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: If they’re there, it means that their parents went through a hell of a lot to try and get them there. Usually, those non-Catholics are like, you know… I can’t remember how many options it was. I was chatting to a friend who’s, I think whose daughter I think now goes to Emmaus, and she wasn’t Catholic, but it was a lot of pestering the principal. And it was like, “Okay, well, she didn’t fit any of this criteria to get in,” she managed to get in.

So I wouldn’t say it’s half. I wouldn’t say it’s a third like… maybe it could be less, but definitely some.

Crystal: Yeah, there’s definitely some non-Catholics. I think that’s a question that comes up a lot because we hear a lot about these Catholic schools, and they sound great, you know. But then a lot of us out there aren’t Catholic, and is there any chance of getting in?

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, there is. Look, there is a chance, but you have to be persistent from what I understand and for what other people have told me. It’s, you know, it’s not a guarantee. Look, even if you make… even if you are… let’s just say it’s, there are 10 levels at which you can enter the school. Even if you’re at the top five, there’s still no guarantee that you can get in. You know, you could have been naughty in Primary School, or, you know, there could be something there that’s stopping you from getting in. You know, you’re just not… it’s just… there’s just more options available to you if you Catholic.

Crystal: Yeah, if you start from the top and go down, whereas if you’re not, and you go, “Okay, well now I have to start from, you know, number seven and then work my way down.”

Dexter: How you possibly get in, yeah, exactly. So… but yeah, look, it’s been done.

Crystal: Mhm.

Dexter: And even still, I think that from the people that have… the kids that have gone there, the religious education is actually quite good. And it’s not… they’re not trying to turn these kids that aren’t Catholic into Catholic.

Crystal: It’s oh, okay. It’s just a subject at the end of the day.

Dexter: Not… so they go… they’re not… they’re not…

Crystal: Okay.

Dexter: Look, they still have to go. They still have to, you know, that I don’t know… church. They do Mass on certain days. So to be honest, I’d have to find out because, like, my kid’s Catholic, so I don’t really know. Funny enough, I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know what they do. They’re Christian. So it is a bit different for me. So I’d like to see what happens with the non-Catholic kids. They might just, you know, they might just not participate because it’s…

Crystal: Oh, really? Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to, I’d have to double check so.

Crystal: Yeah. Interesting. I don’t know. I… I would assume, I’m not religious at all. I would assume if I went to a Catholic school, I would have to participate in everything. Like, I mean, it’s really your choice, isn’t it? To go to a Catholic school.

Dexter: Yeah, look, I think it is. And I’d have to ask my son. That’s actually a really good question. But I don’t think it’s… I don’t believe it would be something that would be shunned either if they… if they chose not to participate. I don’t… I don’t think otherwise… that they’d probably have a lot more strict guidelines for entry. Like, rather, you know, if they say, “Well, if they’re not at all, then it’s like, well, why bother even coming here? We’re not going to let you in.” But they do let people in, so there’s probably, you know, there’s probably ways in which they can participate but not at a particular level like baptisms if they’re not baptized.

And I think that the example I said before, I’m pretty certain her daughter wasn’t, or at least she was baptized with like, in like in another religion sort of thing maybe. Okay, so I don’t know, that’s a good question.

Crystal: Oh well. With… I don’t know if you would know this, but with like learning difficulties, do you know that… do you know that there’s much help or if there’s many resources with that?

Dexter: The actual resources, I think, are really left to the parents. My son has… he doesn’t have learning difficulties or learning issues. He’s probably got attention issues and motivation issues with certain things. So we do get flagged quite early on. Like, again, getting back to those emails, we do know like if he’s done particularly bad in a test, we’ll know, and that’s for all tests too. So we know when he’s done great in a test because we’ll see it.

Crystal: Do you find that they’re supportive though? Like, I mean, after he’s…

Dexter: I look, I think so. We’ve not had to go down that path of trying to rectify it with their assistance for us. Maybe it’s not such a big issue for us. I think we were looking at it at one point, but it was more getting advice from the teacher as to where he could improve or what he should improve upon. But then we were wanting to source it ourselves and not so much asking them.

I think that had it come to that point, they probably would have provided some information. But I don’t know, you know, I don’t know what other schools’ policies are, but it almost would seem a weird sort of conflict of interest if they were to try and push a particular service that’s not actually part of the school, you know what I mean? Like, I would have to say that there’s probably a lot of inter-school support there.

Crystal: But then in in-school, you mean in…

Dexter: Sorry, yeah, you’re in-school support. And then beyond that, they would probably say, “Look, you know, have a look at your local tutors or something else to get additional support.”

Crystal: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s hard to know as well. Like, I mean, I know a lot of parents ask about this sort of thing, like, is there resources and that sort of thing? But I think it’s difficult to know until you’re actually there and you have a specific thing that you need. Like, can the school support that specific thing? Because every child will be different. Like, every child will need something different. So yeah, I don’t blame you for not knowing.

Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to add?

Dexter: Let me see. No. Education, I’m quite happy with. Extracurricular stuff, I’m happy with. The friends, the support network, the teachers from what I understand and have spoken to have been great. The things that they get to do, it’s all pretty standard fare. They go to the city, they do a lot of outdoor activities, they do beach stuff.

Crystal: Oh, real beach stuff?

Dexter: Oh yeah.

Crystal: One thing I did want to ask you is there anything special in Year 9? Because I know some of the other schools have programs and stuff.

Dexter: I think no, it’s a bit different. Like, I know I think Emmaus have their own campus.

Crystal: That’s right.

Dexter: Avila have… I think Avila have their own wing at other schools.

Crystal: And other schools, like Boronia as well.

Dexter: Yeah, some schools are… I don’t believe… I don’t believe Mazenod does anything, and I don’t know whether… I think… I think maybe if it’s a boy school thing, I don’t know, because I didn’t know if St. Joe’s does anything either.

Crystal: Oh, okay.

Dexter: Sometimes, I mean, even just like those programs where they go to the city or…

Dexter: Yeah, yeah, well, they do that. I know, to the city.

Crystal: Yeah, yeah.

Dexter: So but from a Year 9 thing, I don’t believe there’s anything specific. And like, I could be wrong. Maybe it could be… maybe hasn’t done it yet. A girl, a girl school thing.

Crystal: So I know, what was that school? Was it… Lilydale? I think Lilydale…

Dexter: That’s my school.

Crystal: Your school? Okay.

Dexter: Yeah, that’s when they bought out, right, for the entire year?

Crystal: Did I tell you about that?

Dexter: You did.

Crystal: Yeah, it’s funny, because I was telling you about that first, because I had a client with his daughter, I went there.

Dexter: So that’s that’s a bit extreme. Look, I can’t complain about the school. The school is great.

Crystal: Yeah, it it does sound like a wonderful school with a wonderful culture. And I think that’s really important because your child is there every day. Like, you know, program or not, I mean, your child’s in that school environment every day. And if they’ve got good friends and great teachers, it sounds like I think that’s you’re pretty much…

Dexter: Yeah, we’ve not… we’ve not had anything to complain about. And and like what you said before is is 100% correct. Like, it does fly under the radar. And even for us as parents, you know, we do get those emails. And and if the test results are pretty good, we don’t really chase it up. We just look at it and go, “Yeah, that’s nice,” you know.

We don’t hear anything bad. We’ll get emails about, you know, organizing a Father’s Day thing or a Mother’s Day thing. That’s kind of cool, that’s kind of fun. But it’s pretty low key. And as long as he’s happy going there and happy, you know… I’d probably say that most kids… I wouldn’t say they’re thrilled, but for him to wake up and make his way there and then come home and he’s not like, “Oh my God, don’t make me go back there again,” you know, he’s… it’s doing okay. It’s doing its job.

Crystal: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. All right, well, I think we’ve covered everything, Dexter.

Dexter: I think so, yeah.

Crystal: Well, thank you so much for talking to me and spending the time.

Dexter: Yeah, thanks very much.

Crystal: Thanks for joining me on this podcast. Remember that the content that you hear on this podcast is of a general nature and should not be used to make any decisions about schools or anything else. If you want to learn more about schools in Melbourne, make sure you visit the website www.melbourneschools.com.au. You can also join thousands of other parents in our community at Melbourne Schools Discussion Group on Facebook. See you there!

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