Starting year 12 is daunting for almost every student, but Rosie Franzke will have to do it tens of thousands of kilometres away from home.
The Victorian student is a champion cross-country skier and, for the next five months, will be training and competing across Europe.
Australian cross-country skier Rosie Franzke training near her home at Mount Beauty.Credit: Jason Robins
For the 17-year-old from Mount Beauty, that means starting her final year of school next year from a hotel after she competes in Switzerland in the International Biathlon Union junior cup.
“I’m a little bit concerned because I know the workload is going to be quite a bit on top of training and racing,” she said.
But she’s confident she can manage thanks to her enrolment in Virtual School Victoria, a success story that has allowed students like Franzke finish school, and also help those with health or wellbeing issues for which mainstream schooling is not an option.
The virtual school is one of the biggest in the state, with about 5500 students enrolled. Since 2020, student numbers have increased by 46 per cent.
VCE results data show the school achieved a median study score of 26 (out of 50) in 2023, while 3 per cent of students scored above 40.
One of Victoria’s top public schools, Balwyn High, had a median study score of 32 while schools that could be considered to have similar demographics to Virtual School Victoria, such as Craigieburn and Cranbourne secondary colleges, had study scores of 21 and 25, respectively and as few as 0.2 per cent of students achieving a score above 40.
One advantage of in-person learning can be satisfactory VCE completion rates, which sit at 90 per cent for the virtual school but up to 99 per cent at Balwyn High.
While many students go through Virtual School Victoria for subjects not offered at their home school, only a few do virtual learning full-time like Franzke.
Rosie Franzke studies virtually while she juggles training and competing.Credit: Jason Robins
To be fully online, students must fit into one of six enrolment categories: medical, travel, sports/performance, distance, young adulthood and previous home schooling.
Will Borden, dux of the school in 2021, achieved an ATAR of 99.4 after making the switch to Virtual School Victoria because he barely attended his mainstream school.
Swinburne education academic Melinda Davis said while there had always been a form of virtual or distance education, more people were now considering it as an alternative to traditional schools.
“It’s a wonderful alternative for students who genuinely really need that structure, whether it be because of illness, mental health concerns or being remote,” she said.
Davis, a former school principal, said the flexibility virtual learning offered to students, and their parents, allowed them to complete their schooling in a way that was adaptive to their needs.
However, Davis warned it was important to consider what happened to children after they graduated from high school, and how they would deal with the world outside a virtual classroom.
“As challenging as conventional schools can be, they do provide that structure,” she said.
“What I’m also seeing from a university perspective now is that we have a lot of students who really struggle with not having to be on campus, and they feel very disengaged from the university, they feel disengaged from their cohort.”
Davis said the dropout rate among those students was a concern, and many struggled with relationships or friendships.
RMIT lecturer Kathy Littlewood said the social aspect and in-person support could be one reason for higher completion rates at brick-and-mortar schools.
“I think the social aspect does come into play, as well as being a part of the group.”
But it didn’t tell the whole story.
“It really depends on what a student’s wants and needs are, and if they can’t operate successfully in a mainstream school, thank goodness for the virtual school that can offer them other opportunities,” Littlewood said.
Franzke, who represented Australia at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in South Korea this year, believes the flexibility of online schooling, which she’s used since year 9, has helped her succeed in her studies and as an athlete.
“It can be a bit stressful, but that’s why having school online is so good because it’s always consistent, it’s always the same and I know that it’s all going to work no matter where I am,” she said.
“There are entire teams of teachers and their entire jobs are to make sure kids are engaged and doing well at school.”
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