The 2025 school year is under way, and every young Australian is sharing the experience of renewing friendships and the routines of school and learning.

But, these days, students are far less likely to be sharing the same type of school, as we are increasingly herding students into schools which have less in common than ever.

The resulting social hierarchy of schools has a darker side which is damaging the future prospects of many schools and the students they enrol.

Australia now has one of the OECD world’s most divided school systems and segregated enrolment – accompanied by less than stellar levels of student achievement.

It’s hardly surprising: in just about every community, at least one school must, by law, be open to all, while others set certain conditions, including payment of a fee.

That’s not about blame, it is just how it works. But it doesn’t, and this reality becomes more obvious with every passing year.

It’s partly about a poorly regulated public/private school framework, but the spotlight should also be on how public-school authorities have responded to the growth of private education.

One visible response has been the  expansion of specialist and selective schools, alas creating added layers within an already hierarchical system.

Selective schools are mainly found in four Australian States: NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

The total number varies according to whether they are fully or partially selective. NSW has the most at close to 50, but when schools running Victoria’s Select Entry Accelerated Learning and WA’s Gifted and Talented Education programs are added the Australian total rises considerably.

Selective schools do little for overall system achievement. In combination with private schools (which are arguably de facto selective), they have been partly responsible for stripping comprehensive schools (in all sectors) of their higher achieving students.

Governments have fiddled with the system to make it fairer and fit for purpose – but to little avail. Even  well-intended suggestions, for example, to enrol more disadvantaged students, miss the essential point made by the critics.

The  evidence for this abounds. The number of regional NSW public schools which can boast about their high-level results has shrunk to alarming levels.

It seems that the  well-researched peer effects of enrolment segregation on student achievement have taken hold, almost mocking the attempts by school reformers to reverse the cycle for the schools that lose out.

The problem is far less about the innate quality of schools and more about who goes where to school, and how this impacts on the prospects of those without the resources to choose.

What’s the solution? Although the current NSW Government has slowed the rollout of selective schools, winding them back isn’t on their agenda.

But further attention is essential: even the relatively timid 2018 review in NSW found that the selection process was no longer fit for purpose and that it wasn’t identifying gifted and high potential students.

More than two decades ago, an inquiry argued that selective schools were simply enrolling high test scorers from well-off families.

A fair and equitable solution lies in scaling back test entry selection and opening the schools to a much wider range of gifted students and those wiht high potential. It also means shifting the dominant, but quite narrow, assumptions about what constitutes success in schools… and life.

This is arguably more possible than ever, given the  shift away from ATAR entry to university and a growing belief that it’s time we stopped the testing “tail”, designed for a minority, forever wagging the school ‘dog’.

For all schools this would challenge assumptions that all students should be shoe-horned into a conventional pedagogy anchored to lock-step progression built around a compartmentalised curriculum and standardised assessment.

Selective schools could lead the way, especially if they embraced learning designs which better cater for the vagaries of giftedness.

This doesn’t mean that the “selected” or their schools should be left to their own devices.

To the contrary, while driven by their interests, their learning programs need to be rigorous and well planned, with achievement properly credentialled, enabling access to post-school opportunities and tertiary study at the highest levels.

The good news? Australia already has such a fit-for-purpose design.  Big Picture learning in Australia began in WA and Tasmania two decades ago and is now found in over 40 Australian public and some private schools – and is well-supported by school authorities.

Its early success in student engagement and achievement was noticed in disadvantaged schools, but, as its founders Viv White and John Hogan knew at the time, it was a breakthrough strategy for any students who weren’t switched on by the conventional way schools ‘do school’.

Evaluation of the design tells about its success, as indicated by recent research. Big Picture was included as a case study in the report of the  Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System. (Source: Chris Bonnor)

What do Big Picture schools do that is different? Its learning design is characterised by 12 key distinguishers.

Rigour and relationships are especially at the core. Students’ learning is built around their passions, and then developed into a rigorous program with the support of teachers, families, mentors and others.

Most commonly, students work in an advisory (class) of 18 students and the same advisor from years 9 to 12, combined with an internship in an occupation closely linked to their school studies.

These students clearly include the best and brightest, but what they often have in common is their previous disconnect from conventional schooling and their capacity to put runs on the board in a different setting.

Aside from existing credentials, such as the HSC, the  International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC) offers a rigorous non-ATAR pathway from secondary to tertiary study, one that is currently accepted by 17 universities around Australia.

The credential is warranted by the University of Melbourne and hosted on the UAC platform Credfolio. Students have also discovered that it is opening doors they didn’t expect.

It would be a significant breakthrough on several fronts if selective schools were to incorporate such an option.

It would broaden the meaning and measures of success and help diversify the image and purposes of high-profile schools and schooling.

At no extra cost it would also diversify pathways and cater for the high potential students who don’t tick all the conventional ‘talented’ boxes – and shouldn’t have to.

And over time it would help create a better mix of schools, students and learning opportunities. It’s time for the tail to wag a much healthier dog.

This article was first published as ‘Why selective schools don’t work, and what we should do instead’ in Education Review, February 20, 2025