Mike's Minute: Insights from putting five kids through school

We paid our last school fee last week. 

One more term and the high school years at our house are over. 

One of the great insights we have been lucky enough to have over the years is in having five kids you see a lot of school and schools. 

We have pretty much touched every part of the New Zealand education system. 

We have been to private school, public and integrated, single sex, and co-ed. We have been to primary, intermediate, and high school. 

We have been to good schools, ordinary schools, and exceptional schools. 

The overarching view is several-fold. 

1. Principals make or break a place. 

We have seen a school who's reputation had been good, suffered badly when the principal left and the replacement wasn't seen as particularly good, only to see it markedly improve when a new one came along with a fresh focus and a firm determination. 

2. Private school buys you options. 

In things like extra help and facilities, money buys choice and expertise. 

3. Teachers vary dramatically. 

In all schools we have seen a selection of everything, from lazy to brilliant, from effective to hopeless. 

4. All kids are different. 

This is possibly the most enlightening thing of all. A school isn't a one-stop shop. We had kids at a school you might have thought would do it all. For one child it was brilliant and for another it was a mistake. 

5. A lot of it is down to the child. 

I am convinced a child who is determined will succeed in any school. A brilliant kid who can't be bothered, won't. 

6. Parents have to be engaged. 

Schools have become a whipping boy and a social welfare department. They are expected to take on any kid, with any problem, from any home and fix them. That attitude is criminal and too often it's led by shocking parenting. 

7. There is too much wastage. 

If you take the stuff out of a day that isn't needed, you'd be at school I reckon about two hours a day. We can do way better. 

8. I am not sure it's all that different in 2024 from when I was there in '81. 

Good teachers are rare, most schools are fine, and most kids would rather play sport. It's essentially like life – you get out of it what you put in. 

The only major difference is you pay a shed load more now, than you used to. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.