Education Annual 2019: Helping navigate school choices

There is plenty to consider - subject offerings, extra curricular activities, pastrol care, staff engagement, facilities, support programs. To help in navigating your choices, Queensland Country Life's Education Annual 2019 has brought together 20 of the top schools and boarding schools from across the state in a guide designed to make choosing the right school easier.

Schools include:

View the special publication here.

The five or six years spent in high school can be some of the most difficult in a person's life.

Teens are well and truly dragged out of their primary school comfort zone, and must deal with a range of changes and pressures which will continue and evolve as they move through their secondary schooling.

Establishing some solid foundations early in the piece may help ease the strain on children and parents and, at the very least, help you to be better prepared when the demanding times arrive.

There are two important components:

When their child is in primary school, parents are more likely to have the chance to be involved in school life. They can connect through reading in class, assemblies, excursions, barbecues and fetes.

Generally speaking, high school doesn't offer parents the same opportunities.

To help build a link with your child's high school, introduce yourself to the year coordinator or advisor at the beginning of the new year.

Then, if something happens at school or home, the communication channel is already open.

Keep teachers in the loop with events at home which may impact upon a child's behaviour or performance at school. For example, if parents are looking to separate, a family pet dies or there's a serious medical issue.

And, don't be afraid to communicate around the difficult topics such as bullying, not coping with workload or if your child believes a teacher is picking on them. The school can not help if they don't know.

Communicating with your child through these years is obviously essential. Two top tips: ask lots of opened ended questions and listen.

Open ended questions will reduce grunts or one-word answers.

Listening to what your child is saying, rather than listening while you form your response is a strategy which will serve you well.

Author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R Covey, said "most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply".

Don't be that parent.

Be prepared for the senior school rollercoaster ride of friendship. There will be a revolving door of people and you may lose track of who is 'in' and who is 'out'.

The people your children buddy up with in early high school won't necessarily be the same ones they pal around with in the middle years, and may be completely forgotten by the time the last day of school rolls around.

But, you'd be well served to try and keep up. Your child's friends are often your best source of information.

A teenager's life is like a busy airport - absolutely full and extremely stressful.

Parents are like air traffic controllers: juggling, organising, supporting and communicating. Do whatever you can to help them, it will reduce their stress and prevent crashes.

If you want your teen to be organised, you'll have to show them how. Repeatedly.

Set up their desk in a quiet spot. Offer to help get materials they'll need. Help them plan their time and map out their social, sporting, school and work commitments. Teach them how to organise information on their computers (which are the millennial equivalent of a teenager's bedroom).