How Much You Weighed When You Were Born Is More Important Than What School You Went To

Researchers say your birth weight has more of an impact on academic outcomes than what type of school went to.

If you're paying thousands of dollars for a private school education to give your kid an academic edge, then you're pretty much wasting your money, a new study says.

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The study, from the University of Queensland, the University of Southern Queensland and Curtin University showed that "sending children to Catholic or other independent schools has no significant effect.”

"Any differences we see in test results are not due to the school type," report author Professor Luke Connelly said.

The research, involving 4,000 Australian primary school aged students born since 1999, supports the findings of other studies in the US and the UK.

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Researchers say that educational outcomes are about the same, if you take into account the privileged backgrounds of private school kids.

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"They reflect the differences between households and students that already exist in society.

“The work adds to a growing literature from three different continents that the returns from attending independent primary schools are no different from those of attending public school.” Professor Connelly said.

And while there's no difference between independent and public schools, Catholic schools did not perform as well.

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"There's actually some poorer outcomes for kids at Catholic schools interestingly. That's also been mirrored in the international literature. There are some slighter poorer outcomes." the researchers noted.

But there is some good news in the study for Catholic schools, with better behavioural outcomes and peer relationships than those in public school systems.

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Factors that had a bigger impact on a child's school success than a paid education include weight at birth, how much time the mum spends with her child and whether both parents finished Year 12.

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Yep, turns out how well your mum and dad went in school is more important that what school you went to. Soz private school kids. I'm sure it was totally worth it.

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