NSW affordable property for gifted education

For parents with gifted primary school students!
We're a young family in south west sydney with a "highly gifted" son who we'd like to provide great education opportunities for him.
Unfortunately that comes with a very high price tag if we were to move to the east or north shore where there are great programs for these students.
We currently rent and are holding onto a deposit for a house but we really can't afford to buy more than a 600-650k property.
What would you do? Just pondering on options. He's only in year 3 so we have some time on our hands before highschool

 

Why worry?
A highly gifted child should be able to win a full scholarship to whichever private school you choose.
Marg

 

The highest performing schools are all public selective schools. Entry to these schools is based on ability not location so it won’t matter where you live. The first step is to get a place in an Opportunity Class, an advanced placement class for Year 5 & 6 students. These classes funnel straight into the Selective Schools as there are actually less Opportunity Class spots than selective school spots. Entry is based on a test completed towards the end of Year 4 and student rankings provided by their current school. What are opportunity classes? | Selective high schools and opportunity classes

 

Oh yes we intend to get him into a selective school but not so keen on long distance travelling (not with 3 other siblings to commute). Was hoping for an easy solution of somewhere affordable but with great schools, even if it means out of Sydney (though I'll always be biased to Sydney). Thankyou for your help and responses so far!

 

Are you sure that your not counting your chickens too early ?

It is a very competitive space - we have been involved at one of the leading academic schools for 15+ years now (3.5 still to go for the youngest), but have paid our way.

Have regularly had comparisons of our middle ranking kids to the high achieving cousins and friends at other schools.

Obviously I know nothing about your specific situation - but perhaps you might need to plan for schools fees to provide that great education.

 

If your kid is so gifted, then he will either or get into any of the selective schools and get a scholarship..

Sure throwing all this money might at him might slightly improve his chances.

But ultimately it's all to do with him

 

No the issue isn't with him getting into a selective school, I'm just wondering if there's anywhere outside of Sydney that's affordable perhaps with comparable schools. Most of the schools in sydney I would have liked for him to attend that could cater to him are too far and too expensive to move closer to.
He's been tested, diagnosed and accelerated and we are still looking at avenues to grow his potential.

 

Maybe rent close to where his school will be?
1. Apply for all the top schools.
2. See what offer he gets.
3. Move near there.

My colleague's son got accepted into North Sydney boys so the family moved to North Sydney from Hurstville. My colleague works in North Sydney too - double win for the move.

 

Just come to Brisbane. We have gifted kids in our schools too.

 

There are gifted students all over Australia.

And it is not only Sydney that has good schools.

Most truly gifted students (those kids who won world wide academic competitions) that I worked with (in a largely selective school) knew far more than their teachers anyway. Understanding teachers and ancillary staff simply stood back and saw their role to guide and steer the student to reach as far as they could. They teach themselves by researching, mostly at university level.
Marg

 

education is overated. as long as the kid knows the basics(which is very important ) experiences will take him futher.. else every tom dick and harry with a degree will be succesfull by now.

teaching a kid how to think, question etc is way more important..


also have fun.

 

There are many elements that will determine if the school is a good fit. Looking at HSC performance alone, here are the top 150 schools. Unfortunately the top 10 government non-selective schools are all in parts of Sydney out of your price range (for a house). If you keep reading down the list though there are some on the central coast and south coast that you might want to look at. I hope this helps. 2017 High School Rankings | Top 150 Schools in NSW

 

Moorebank High School in Chipping Norton is partially selective and one of the primary schools nearby has an OC class for years 5-6. You're unlikely to buy anything in Chippo at that budget but areas nearby you could.
Girraween and Penrith High Schools are selective and are tough to get into. You'll find something in neighbouring suburbs in your budget

 

Then James Ruse would be the obvious choice and it is reasonable accessible from the outer areas of Sydney. You cannot do better school wise for someone gifted.

These schools also cater well for out of area students with special transportation - have a talk to James Ruse and I'll think you will be fine to stay living in the south west.

 

The thing with gifted children is that the vast majority of the time they become average compared to other students their age by the time they finish high school, no matter what opportunities you throw at them. It's just that their brains happened to develop much earlier than their peers at a younger age.

It's similar to having a growth spurt and being 6ft tall at age 12. It doesnt mean they'll be 7ft 5" and playing for the NBL by age 18 .

There was doco on the ABC on this topic just recently.

 

i might seem ignorant here but im generally interested, what actually is a "Gifted child?

Seems that where a child shows interest and places his energy in something at a young age, is clearly what he will Excel at by a multiple compared to his Peers. It would be easy to make the comparison at a young age as you have a low base and not much to compare to. Yet at 18, a lot of interests start aligning with the rest of the population due to outside influence. Clearly im generalizing and just thinking out loud

Il use my young brother as a poor example, as a kid age 8-9 was blowing everyone out of the water in just about all subjects, even years above him. I think he got moved up 3yrs and was with teens before he was 10, offered scholarships etc. Come 18 all he does is play video game's and eat too much.

His friend, did nothing through school except glide and play sports, go out and play with friends etc. age 18, about to start UNI to become a criminal lawyer.

One was labeled a "gifted child" and then decided that's not what he wanted.

 

I think you answered your own question. It’s a child whose talents or abilities far exceed those of their age group.

What they were saying on this this show however is that it is important to nurture their talent otherwise there is a danger that they will quickly get bored... and maybe end up like your brother.

Also dont get me wrong, there are exceptions to the rule. Tiger woods got a scratch handicap at age 11. Today I was reading about this Indian-Australian mathematician who won some prestigious mathematics prize, he started University at 13. How much of that comes down to nature over nurture though, I’m not sure.

 

If you’re a normal parent to ‘gifted’ children. Where are the resources to get support from?

Getting into a good school is one thing, they’ll still need to be nurtured outside school.

 

Come to Newcastle

Cheers,
Inertia

 

That's very true, and something his current
school is already doing. I should have been more clear though, socially hes isolated, as there isn't a cohort of students like him around here and the programs etc that I see for the gifted support groups are largely out of area