Ellerslie School - Ellerslie

Great school, supported by a wonderful wider school community and staff.

Love the school. Learning everyday when I'm there. Parents need good schools like this

Wonderful school with lovely teachers that instil respect and virtues in everyday curriculum. Proud to send my kids here.

Absolutely unwelcoming and mean. School office staff - one in particular, was shocking. Didn't bother to understand what parents feel and standard answer was to refer online or the info pack. No empathy at all.

Such a great school my Kids love it. Open plan teaching is definitely better than the old class rooms I had as a kid.

My previous review was hidden by Google, I made a new account just so people would be able to see it, and because of Google's character limit, I couldn't put everything I wanted in this review, so it's shortened. Long story short, I've been at this school for 8 years and the reason why i'm criticising this school is not because I want to spread my hate, but to want to see this school improve and become better. The teachers there range from actually encouraging students to "Be the best they can be" to teachers who hate working with children, to dictators. There was a specific teacher that was a main culprit for this, who was a literal dictator to his room. If he didn't like something about it, it would be dealt with. Even something as simple as asking a friend where I could find some glue; nope that's not allowed here, separate! He unironically "encouraged" constructive collaboration between students, but yet, if he heard anything in his room, it had to stop immediately. This kind of teacher doesn't make a classroom better, it makes it worse and everyone scared to say anything, even if it was just TO KNOW WHERE SOME GLUE IS- The change from classrooms to pods was a failure in so many ways, Ellerslie School could have just not done the change, and then save $10 million dollars. It's absurd. The problem for the parents was that they had no idea where to go, because majority of the pods aren't even labelled, you had to go through multiple pods just to find the correct directions to your specific GG room. But that wasn't my biggest problem with the pods, it was how it was portrayed, and how it failed on it's goal. On the opening day of the pods, Lisa Harland gave a speech on how this new education system would benefit students, teachers by getting them closer together to have more connections and to get students to be more collaborative with each other. Not only did they not succeed with their goals, but in the end, they just made it worse than it was with normal classrooms! Teaching in classrooms worked so much better than in pods because teachers now don't have enough control over their students, and because of this, students can take advantage of this. For example: The teachers might say "You need to finish this work assignment by tomorrow or else there will be consequences". If you didn't finish the assignment before tomorrow, then guess what? The teachers wouldn't care. No one would care. We would just go on to another subject. And the idea of bringing students closer together was another failure, because it did the exact opposite. It would encourage students to stick with their normal friend group because people had the choice to move away from others. But in normal classrooms, this wouldn't happen, we would all be forced in the same space and while this sounds bad, it isn't because by the end of the year, I would be able to name every student in the class and be able to talk to them, instead of in pods where by the end of the year, I have no idea who %70 of the students name's are, and I've never talked to them. The classrooms felt like a community. The pods felt like a classroom. This school is very biased. Most of the awards given out aren't given by work, skill or improvement, their given out by one's reputation. There can be somebody that is very kind, clever and hard working, but if that person doesn't have a reputation, or stands out in any way, the chance of getting an award is very rare, even if the school says it isn't. There is an award given out every assembly, called the 5B Warriors. I thought this would be a good chance to give credit to students who actually put an effort into their work, but no. Every award is literally just picking up rubbish. At prize giving, the principle mentioned something along the lines of "- It doesn't matter if you get awarded or not, you should do good because it's good.". And while I do agree with that statement, you shouldn't make everything you give out by your biased vision. You treat the recognised ones like kings, while the others are nobody's.

Principal went on for about 55 mins about how exceptional his school is. Then spent 5 mins on how my child is not good enough for his school. So self-absorbed that they cannot see the forest for the trees...and it starts at the front desk.

My experience was ruined by one teacher, all of the other teachers Ive had throughout my 8 years at this school encouraged me to work hard and learn with positive encouragement. Expect one teacher that I had in year 8 who completely ruined my school experience resulting in me having a hatred for that one teacher. During my last year that one teacher repeatedly said that I was just lazy and wouldn't go far in life. Don't get me wrong Ellerslie is a great school with amazing teachers that encourages their student to learn and grow.