Public vs Private - Part 2

It wasn't easy to move schools, but it was ok.  According to mum the principal of Taroona at the time was very suspicious - why would someone on a scholarship to Fahan, suddenly come to Taroona High? He must have thought that I committed some as yet undiscovered (or covered up) heinous crime at Fahan.

Anyway I survived.  It took about a term until I really settled in and found a good group of friends - from then on I really thrived.  There were some things I missed about Fahan though, but these were outweighed by what I had at Taroona.

• The classrooms all had carpet
• You felt ilke you were part of a family
• The language teachers happened to be much better - although I was bad at languages.
• You felt a real sense of privilege to go there (this probably wasn't a good thing as we really looked down our noses at public school kids)
• The classes were small
• You took turns to ring a gong to signify the end of class - that was fun!
• I could walk to school - the Taroona High busses were a bit of a nightmare 

Good things about Taroona High

• Subject choices were so much broader - I was amazed and delighted at the subject range
• Sports choices were so much broader -there were teams for everything whereas at Fahan you chose between netball and softball in summer, hockey and badminton in winter.  
• The art teachers happened to be much better - they had a great influence on me
• With so many students it was much easier to find somewhere to fit in socially
• Facilities were much better (even without carpet) - unlike Fahan we had a proper gym, ample grounds,  woodworking & home economics facilities 
• Being co-ed the relationships between boys and girls were a lot more normal (and dare I say healthy) than the ones the Fahan girls had with the Hutchins boys.
• Didn't have to pay extra for books or subjects
• As it was on the river we went kayaking in PE and PE Studies. Unfortunately this meant we also went swimming in PE! 
• They sold mars bars and hot chips in the canteen*

But it's these experiences which will make it really easy to confidently send Jett and Zali to Taroona High (or Kingston if they want).  They won't be missing out on anything.

Note: since publishing yesterday's instalment mum claims  that Paul  didn't actually have a scholarship to Hutchins. huh.  So it turns out I'm the only smart one in the family. :)