JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO REVERSE THE CO-ED DECISION
Newington Needs You!
Register using the buttons below. If you are both a current parent of a student affected, and alumni, please register with both forms.
Current Registration Count: 902
Co-ed move looks woke, could send school broke.
Read Peter Thomas’ opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph (07/05/2024) where he explains the school’s declining financial position and asks the question:
“Given the deterioration in the school’s financial position in the past five years, how does the leadership hope to pay for the $100m-$200m investment needed to deliver the current council’s co-ed strategy?”
See below for further detailed financial analysis and PDF versions of the article.
Alumni have no confidence in the College Council, nor Headmaster!
Make no mistake, the Old Newingtonian’s Union has NO CONFIDENCE in Michael Parker as Headmaster and NO CONFIDENCE in Tony McDonald and his College Council.
HISTORY IS MADE
Never, in the 161 year history of Newington College, has a group of stakeholders as important as the Old Nerwingtonian’s Union voted against the College Council and Headmaster in such a fashion.
Yet, the college council continues to proceed down the co-ed path through a forest of red flags, wilfully blind to the unnecessary, unjustified and unpopular status of the decision and the loud and clear objections of the college community.
The risk was clearly identified in the ONUs own research and then ignored. It is worth remembering what the research found:
“If co-ed were to be introduced, there is a strong risk of losing support among those who currently endorse Newington College.”
Why Newington College Should Remain an All-Boys School and…
Why Newington College Should NOT Become Co-Ed:
On 20 February 2024 the College Council Chairman, Tony McDonald, explained his Council’s reasons why Newington will transition to co-ed.
Our Save Newington College (SNC) Group’s position is that he did not make out the case nor justify. See our detailed response by clicking here:
UPDATE: ONU Special General Meeting - all 5 motions carried!
Wed 27/03/2024
All 5 Motions Carried! Thank you.
Thank you to all alumni who attended the shambolic, yet historic, SGM on Wednesday night. The ONU Executive, and the ineffective third party engaged to count the votes, were completely overwhelmed with the large number of attendees who braved the 3 hour queue to register and get involved.
Click button below for more information:
“Toxic masculinity has become a memetic cliche of progressive extremism,”
Tony George - The Kings School Headmaster
The headmaster at The Kings School has penned an inciteful essay taking aim at “virtue signalling”, “identity politics”, “cancel culture” and the media, amid a growing and nationwide trend away from single-sex education. Click here to read the full essay.
Woke madness...
Woke madness...
Take a minute to read Greg Sheridan’s piece:
“Why abolishing boys schools is an act of woke madness -
“Buck up, boys schools, you have a lot to offer. The campaign to abolish single-sex schools, especially boys schools, is a sign of the madness of ideology and the badness of groupthink.”
Source: The Australian 12/03/2024
Our response to the Tony McDonald letter:
“…they have not made the case…
…the decision is ideological and doctrinal only…
…there is unacceptable risk of lasting damage…”
Read our detailed response to the Newington College Council Chairman’s letter of 20/02/2024 where he outlines information about his council’s decision for Newington to go co-ed.
Has he made the case for Newington to go co-ed? Or is his letter full of platitudes, negative and disingenuous argument, irrelevant facts and flawed thinking?
An update is available from our friends at the Newington Traditions Support Fund (formerly known as the Class Action Group) who raise important questions about the school’s governance, the College Council’s transparency and the values they hold.
- Tongan Community Gutted
- Tongan Community Gutted
In the College Council’s quest for diversity and inclusion, the real results are coming in…
This from a Newington mum, when asked for the Tongan community’s feelings on the co-ed decision:
“The Tongan community are gutted with this decision! There was no consultation with the Tongan community who have been part of Newington’s history for 150 years! Well I haven’t been included… I tried to register when it first came out and I emailed the school and was told that the spots for discussion groups were full!
I have had nephews, sons attend Newington and they’re extremely disappointed with the co-ed thing!
I have taken my youngest son out and he will be attending Kings! We will no longer do the Tongan stall which I started in 2012 for back to Newington Day…”
The process was a sham…
Lack of consultation, a refusal to disclose expensive research, no business case made, no evidence kids learn better with co-ed, no evidence that a co-ed Newington will be better than what Newington is today…
Do girls do better in co-ed schools? NAPLAN data suggests “No”.
A recent study commissioned by Catholic Schools NSW using NAPLAN test data between 2019 and 2022 found single-sex schools performed better than co-ed schools.
Analysis from the Kathleen Burrow Research Institute, using data for years 3, 5, 7 and 9, found the disparity between results was “particularly high” in numeracy, but there is little difference in reading.
The advantage was “generally greater for boys schools than girls schools”, the study found.
“Overall, the results of this analysis imply a modest academic advantage for single-sex schools, with the advantage generally greater for boys’ schools than girls’ schools.”
However, the percentage of students in single-sex schools has dropped from 7.2 per cent in 2018 to 7 per cent today.
The Australian Council for Educational Research found in 2019 that students in coeducational schools learn at the same speed, or even faster, than their segregated counterparts.ACER research fellow Katherine Dix says: “In terms of the compounding influence of being in a single-sex school … there appears to be no value-add in numeracy achievement and even a decline in reading achievement over time in single-sex schools compared with coeducational schools.”
Source: theaustralian.com.au
Tony George - The Kings School Headmaster
“Boys don’t need girls in the classroom’ to learn the rules…
They’ve all got mums and sisters and female teachers so they all know what it is to submit to a woman in authority. So don’t tell me they don’t know how to go out in the workplace and kowtow to a female boss, because they’ve been doing it all their school life.”
The King’s School headmaster Tony George last year told parents at the elite all-boys school that society “is in the middle of a genderism experiment’’ and that boys did not need girls in their classrooms to learn to “kowtow to a female boss’’.
Source: theaustralian.com.au
