St George Girls High School Victoria Street, Kogarah, New South Wales 2217

"school only cares about aesthetics, even the deputy admitted the uniform was changed because she liked the private school look. Money is spent on building murals and "inspiring" quotes on the walls instead of upgrading classrooms and bathrooms."

"Where to begin? The state of the school is atrocious. Gum is on every wall and under every table, including in the bathrooms, which also have moths and mosquitos just flying around. The toilets are broken, clogged, cracked, or dirty, the walls are peeling and grey, and the carpets are stained (shout out to the juniors, who have little respect for their surroundings or older peers). Yet instead of addressing these issues, the school installed new, cringe murals and "hydration stations," which are purely aesthetic and superficial changes. The uniform was also recently updated to include an obnoxious red jumper and poor-quality blue socks, which easily fray, and are itchy and expensive. Again, these changes attempt to salvage the school's external reputation and give us a knock-off private school look, instead of dealing with more worrying issues with the facilities and teachers. Whilst some teachers are wonderful and make their subjects thoroughly enjoyable, they are unfortunately few and far in between. Most teachers (including entire faculties), cannot teach and are unprofessional. Some are away more than they are here, others are slow and unprepared, others still are easily distracted or emotional (from swearing at students to full-on breakdowns), and others simply hand out sheets, sit back on their phones, and don't teach. Yet they are happy to make their exams difficult with highly time-pressured conditions and poorly-organised exam blocks. Many students have resorted to external tutors or pulling all-nighters to complete homework, which is ridiculous considering that this is a selective school and students work very hard to attain a coveted place in order to secure better teachers, resources, and facilities. Worse, when students attempt to raise these issues, they are brushed off and made to take the blame. This is extremely frustrating and has left students stuck with poor teachers at an unfair disadvantage, which is reflected in our falling marks (our rank has fallen from 16th to 49th since Romeo entered) and motivation. It is no wonder the school's rank and prestige is plummeting :("

"A quite pleasant school HOWEVER, the one thing the school needs to change is the Science faculty. Some of the teachers are so rude, speaking to you in an unprofessional manner. It's fine to be strict, but you can do that without being RUDE."

"This school needs better teachers. The uniform rules are so strict that one wrong thing could land you a call to your parents. In p.e, many of my classmates had gotten into trouble for not tying up your hair for sports. The teacher that came to us had yelled at us rudely and told them to go to the staff room at recess. She then spoke about how we were disrespectful to the sport teachers by not tying our hair up, only for our supervising teacher to stare at their computer all double period and not caring. The teacher had acted like we had committed a crime. One of my classmates, who didnt even get in trouble but still accompanied us, had been taken into the p.e staffroom for expressing her opinion. She came back after one period, crying. This school needs teachers who will actually respect their students, not just yell at them for the smallest thing."

"After reading the reviews I have wondered if this is the same school I attended between 1957 and 1961. We had a strict uniform code, heaps of homework, along with super strict rules. One of those was about talking to boys in school uniform. A girl in my class was given several weeks' detention for talking to her brother. Her father brought this to the attention of the relevant authorities. One of the English teachers liked to come into a classroom and scream "you little lumps of putty". If you showed any initiative it was knocked out of especially by this teacher. It wasn't easy to gain a place in this school. To keep your place you had to work hard. One girl in one of my classes fell victim to being turfed out because someone thought she wasn't up to,standard.. She had a successful career in one of Australia's biggest corporations. As for career advice, we were all told to become teachers I went to the 20 year reunion for my cohort. At my table there was another person, like me, who had not become a teacher. She told someone whingeing about how hard teaching was to try selling used cars, she had done that, I didn't go to another reunion because I found that my peers had a very narrow view of life. The word I used was "boring". I didn't become a teacher but worked for a well known company where no one cared what school I had attended. How I worked and my attitude to the work had me promoted twice in the 7 years I was there."