What’s the number one thing you need in schools? A safe environment? Flexibility? A well-constructed learning experience? Super schools put all this at risk. The term ‘super schools’ refers to schools that teach students from Kindergarten all the way to Year 12. Most of these schools are private, as they cater to a smaller audience and can fit all students on one campus. However, the issue is that most public schools can simply not afford to hold this wide age range, especially public schools in high-density areas that already have thousands of students.

The problem that super schools present is that students of different ages need different types of learning. Many primary school students stay in the same classroom with the same teacher, while high school students move around. This creates difficulties and complexities that don’t need to be there, and that impede on learning. It also means that the requirements for teachers will vary to a large degree, and the demands for teachers are larger.

Back in 2013, a news article by The Advertiser reported national literacy and numeracy testing revealed super schools were underperforming, yet another way that they fail to measure up compared to other types of schools.

Students of different years also need different facilities, like a playground for primary school students and woodwork, metalwork, and music classrooms for high school students. Even if these buildings are spread out across a campus, space in metropolitan areas is limited, and schools need to make the best of it.

However, these issues don’t exist in rural areas, where super schools need to exist to have a large enough student population. Adaptability is arguably the most important feature of a school, so the existence of superschools isn’t an issue, it just becomes an issue depending on where they are and what they offer. Despite this, it still doesn’t account for the social differences in the ages of students, and the impacts this can have.

The normal age of a student in Kindergarten is around five, while Year 12 students are around eighteen. This difference is huge, especially when you take into account the contrast in maturity and emotional growth. The behaviour of these ages is also very different, as whether people like to admit it or not, high school bathrooms can be filled with graffiti, vaping, and general behaviours that young children shouldn’t be exposed to. A solution to this offered by some schools are designated bathrooms for designated years, however these rules, much like others, are hard to enforce.

Young minds are impressionable, and they need to be given the right impression by the right people. While teachers are likely to follow guidelines and set a good example for younger students, it’s impossible to expect that older students will do the same. There’s a simple way to solve this problem - have different ages in different schools. This also helps students mature at the right rate.

Most super schools are private schools, and a study from the University of York found that students in private schools are more likely to experience bullying and start drinking earlier. This behaviour can be directly linked with being in a ‘super school’, younger students are more likely to interact with and see older students drinking, in or outside of school, and are more likely to copy this behaviour. 

The basic fact is that school needs to be a controlled environment - as it is as much for social learning as academic - and to ensure the best of both, there need to be as few super schools as possible.