PARENTS at Newcastle's Catholic high schools say they've been left with more questions than answers after information sessions about an overhaul of the system.
The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle plans to transition three schools to years seven to 12: the year 11 and 12 St Francis Xavier's College at Hamilton and its two year seven to 10 feeder schools, St Pius X High at Adamstown and San Clemente High at Mayfield.
External advisor and transition lead consultant Dr Dan White held listening assemblies at each school last week.
Parents participated in small group discussions to identify and prioritise their school's strengths, plus challenges that needed to be addressed.
A Pius X parent said about 80 people attended their school's event, which left them with mixed feelings.
"Parents did not come away really knowing much more about it, we had more questions probably than we were given answers," they said.
"Dr White said he can't tell us things like how the zoning will be arranged for each school, they don't know that yet, they haven't decided that yet, they don't even know when all of this will start taking place, they don't know whether it's going to be year seven starting first going into SFX or whether they'll start with year 10 and work backwards."
The parent said Dr White seemed to be a "charismatic and thoughtful person" who "set up right from the beginning that this wasn't a consultation about whether this was going to happen, this was definitely happening".
He explained his role was to write reports about feedback from the listening assemblies and hold focus group discussions before more listening assemblies in September.
"The whole process was good and did make the parents feel they were being listened to by Dan White, but there was a lot of scepticism in the room about whether the actual diocese is going to listen to Dan White and what the parents and staff and children had to say," they said.
"A couple of the priorities were 'Will this information actually be listened to because you haven't listened to us yet?'."
The parent said the listening assembly hadn't changed the way they felt about the plan.
"I think they're taking away something unique and special about this system, about what was happening here and I don't think they're ever going to replicate that in this new way of teaching year seven to 12," they said.
"They said research shows and studies have shown working with seven to 12 is better than the old systems, but of course they haven't shown us what that research is."
The parent said they "didn't feel encouraged" the new model's benefits would compensate for what would be lost.
"We have no choice, we've got to accept it now and make it as good as it can be and focus on those things and that was definitely the message we got [Thursday] night - don't try to fight this, because it's not going to be changed, you've just got to accept it now and try and make the best of it."
Director of Schools Gerard Mowbray said feedback "will be combined to underpin the rationale for any recommended implementation strategies that may emerge from the process".
