This article contains information that is for general information only and should not be used for the basis of making any decisions regarding education or anything else. It is solely the writer’s opinion of the writer’s experience of one open day at the school and the writer’s interactions with the people present on that day. The writer’s article is purely subjective. Facts and information may or may not be complete, accurate, reliable or valid reflection of the school in question.
I encourage you to personally tour the school and meet the educators and students, form your own opinion and leave a comment here.
Best of luck with your search for the perfect school!
Tour Details
- Tour: Wednesday morning 9am-10am
- Taken by registrar – Julie
- No opportunity to speak with principal or vice principal or students
- Name: Fintona Girls School
- Sector:Â Private
- Gender: All Girls
- Religion: Christian
- Year 12 Fee: $38,216 ( For 2024 )
- Location: 79 Balwyn Road Balwyn, Victoria 3103
- Phone number: (03) 9880 4445
- Website: https://www.fintona.vic.edu.au/
- Name: Fintona Girls School
- Sector:Â Private
- Gender: All Girls
- Religion: Christian
- Year 12 Fee: $38,216 ( For 2024 )
- Location: 79 Balwyn Road Balwyn, Victoria 3103
- Phone number: (03) 9880 4445
- Website: https://www.fintona.vic.edu.au/
Fintona is a small private girls school with enrolment of less than 700 students. The campus is set near the Balwyn shops but has an intimacy and a lush green feel due to the abundance of greenery and large trees. Buildings are a mix of what looks like heritage listed buildings and the modern, spacious newly built STEM building. Â
General vibe at Fintona Girls School
Julia the registrar who took the tour said that Fintona is known as the “ medicine school” as a lot of girls end up doing very well academically and going onto to do medicine at university. Â
However when they’re at Fintona, the girls are encouraged to try everything to have a well rounded education. There seem to many opportunities to be involved in music, theatre, sport and other extracurriculars such as debating. Julie mentioned the benefit of Fintona is that the school is small so it’s a good opportunity to try everything, whereas in a larger school, students may have to fight for opportunities.Â
Another benefit of being at Fintona is that being a small school, there is a family feel to it and the school offers high quality pastoral care. Teachers get to know students individually and even get to know their families which helps when students need individual attention. An example was a student was gifted in math was identified and able to be extended by joining higher grade math classes.   Â
Students get to know girls in other year levels too, through house base activities like performances.
Wellbeing at Fintona Girls School
Wellbeing is part of the timetable on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The registrar spoke about topics they cover such as cyberbullying, mentioning that occasionally they have guest speakers come in but was unable to expand further on what the wellbeing program entails. Â
There is a full time school counsellor available to support wellbeingÂ
View full gallery here.
Diversity at Fintona Girls School
When questioned about neurodiversity including ASD and ADHD Julie said that they do try to accommodate these students depending on what they need. However, she did mention sometimes public schools are better resourced to deal with these issues. Â
For example, if the student needs a full time teachers aid, it may be better to seek a public school as Fintona isn’t well resourced in this area. Â
Music / Performances at Fintona Girls School
Classroom music is part of the curriculum until year 8, after that music isn’t compulsory. There is the opportunity for private music lessons at an extra cost. There is also many opportunities to be a part of ensembles and orchestras at the school as well as choir. The head of music seemed to be very enthusiastic about the music programÂ
“There’s always something happening – performances, carols, orchestra, it’s a very busy place!”Â
Performance seems to be a big part of the culture at Fintona with House concerts at the end of the year. There is also the Shakespeare skit tradition where senior students groups compete and perform a Shakespeare skit in one of the beautiful courtyards. This is an annual tradition and a whole day affair that involves the whole school. Â
Sport at Fintona Girls School
Fintona is part of the GSV sports schools which means they play after school on weekdays rather than on weekends. There is no Saturday sport. Fintona offers a wide variety of sport including rowing and netball using its own facilities, some facilities from nearby schools ( like Carey’s swimming pool ) and Balwyn park where there are tennis courts and an oval for AFL.
Girls are encouraged to participate in sport even though it’s not compulsory.
Other extracurricular
Other notable activities mentioned was debating. Fintona has very strong debating teams and debating is an activity starting at grade 5. Fintona competes and does very well at interschool debating.
Students at Fintona Girls School
We didn’t have much of a chance to interact with the students, however the students we saw were friendly and proactively said hello to the tour group.
Teachers
We met several of the teaching staff on the tour including a math teacher, the head of math department and a music teacher. All teachers seemed lovely. They came across as down to earth, caring and and genuinely enthusiastic about their work. Notably the maths teachers made an effort to speak with the little prospective student on the tour.Â
Scholarships
Scholarships are available to internal and external students to reward high academic and / or music performance.  Â
Last wordsÂ
Fintona seems to offer a very academic but also a varied education with many opportunities to participate in arts, music, sport and other extracurriculars. Girls are encouraged to be well rounded and give many things a go while they are in the safe environment of school. Â
They are strong in academic rankings and students obviously do very well in ATAR scores. Facilities and teachers are available to offer a high quality STEM education. Â
Wellbeing however doesn’t seem to be a major focus of the culture and wasn’t mentioned much during the tour. According to the tour, neurodiversity doesn’t seem to be well catered for at Fintona.
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