Annandale Christian College, Annandale | Fees, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

If you are considering sending your child to ACC for secondary education, there are a few things to note before you pour thousands of dollars into this organisation.

Staff Issues:
The school is constantly struggling with staff, often having one teacher overloaded with multiple classes at a time, while some barely manage to teach the lesson and maintain control of the class. Teachers give feedback that is not consistent with the QCAA guidelines. When questioned, the school doubles down and refuses to elaborate. However, there are some amazing teachers whom I hold in the highest regard. These amazing teachers are overshadowed by some not so amazing teachers. I believe the underlying issue is the school’s hiring behaviour. As this is a religious organisation, they hire exclusively Christians. While this is an understandable practice, it may be contributing to the low calibre of teachers.

School Rules & Enforcement Practices:
ACC sets out their list of rules in their “acceptable use agreements.” They lay out everything from student behaviour to media release. These documents don’t appear to go through a proofing phase, and are ambiguous at best. Many teachers don’t know the rules and enforce what they feel like. They go to great lengths to ensure you wear the right type of hat or have the right coloured shoes, but fail to address most forms of bullying. On the off chance they do step in, the situation isn’t dealt in a confidential manner and often achieves nothing. Many students have been pushed to leave the school due to bullying.

The school will harp on about their precious agreements, but when asked to prove their case they cry “semantics” and refuse to uphold their end and simply say “That’s the rules.” They are too concerned with making sure their spyware is installed on student’s personal laptops that they have actually used to monitor students at home that they forget to focus on things like schoolwork and good education.

They target students that they have personal vendettas with despite total lack of evidence. They undergo no sort of investigation of facts and instead act as judge, jury, and executioner, allowing no meaningful input from those suspected. And when asked to produce evidence of behaviour breaches, both by students and parents alike, the school blatantly admits that they have no evidence and are acting solely on speculation. The school seems to think that this is a totally normal thing to do and will go so far as to say it’s how an actual court proceeding would happen. They live in their own world and rule with an iron fist.

Online Security & ICT
This school is lacking in their ICT department. Their computers can take 10+ minutes to log in and are susceptible to breaches. The ICT department don’t appear to know much about optimisation and focus more on catching students playing games than their own infrastructure. They also have monitored students while at home through their laptops. I can’t begin to recall the number of times the school’s ICT department has failed to prevent an online attack. The school has suffered everything from scammers breaching the email service, to a full-scale data loss resulting in an untold amount of teacher resources being lost. And with the school to move fully to storing everything in OneDrive, I wouldn’t be surprised if another data loss occurs as they likely won’t bother with local backups as these “IT Professionals” don’t seem to believe in it as they have made possessing even a USB grounds for punishment.

Overall, if you can live with the staff issues, those being bullying from staff, monitoring of student’s laptops at home, attempted illegal searches of students, the non-existent judicial system they run, the poor communication, the data breaches of unknown magnitudes, the homophobia, and the complete lack of faith in staff leadership, then go for it.

– Mitchell Jones, student from Year 8 – Year 12.

If you are looking for a primary school for your young ones Annandale may be a viable option, as the education program for Kindergarten to Year 6 is decent. However, I strongly advise a reconsideration of sending your teenagers to Annandale Christian College for their high school career. The school lacks fundamental procedures to manage any issues or punishments. They are inconsistent and will often overlook serious issues. The school also suffers with staff in the secondary environment, and will often have one teacher overloaded with work, whilst other teachers struggle to teach basic concepts and maintain control of their classes. Don’t get me wrong there are incredible teachers within the school, they are unfortunately overshadowed by the less incredible teachers. Annandale lacks information on navigating through the senior years (Year 11 & 12), if your child is considering applying to any university other than those in QLD, I strongly recommend against sending your child to Annandale Christian College as they will not receive help or guidance easily.

Side notes:
Annandale Christina college also fails to provide any sexual education, although that may represent “Christian Values” it has proven to lead to misinformation (in some cases no information) to students in the school causing significant issues in Year 11 & 12.

Annandale Christian College has a toxic environment that is built on false pretences by the school board and principal. An example of this can be seen in these reviews, as most on this page are made by members of the school board, teachers, and the principal himself. The school does not care enough to communicate efficiently with students about their concerns or wishes. For example, an incident occurred with myself and a guest speaker and in order to clear any miscommunication from my point of view I sent the principle an email, which he responded to 1 month later dismissing my concerns and claims.

This school does not hide its open homophobia, inviting guest speakers in to discuss their opinions on the topic despite most students being uneducated about the topic. The misunderstanding between the guest speakers and the students leads to bullying issues and isolation between classmates. Many of the students do not feel as though Annandale is living up to their promises, “All students have the right to feel valued for who they are and included as part of the school community.” (Annandale Christian College – Principal’s Welcome)

– Grace Catania, student from Kindergarten – Year 12

I was recently asked why I spend the money on a private school. ACC offers a number of things. 1. Excellent education – always in the top 3 OP rankings. 2. Nurturing – I loved the Principal telling every individual student that they were seen and they matter at their farewell assembly. 3. Community – small schools offer a sense of belonging that big schools struggle with. Great faith based school!

ACC has been such a wonderful fit for my family. Both my children settled in really quickly and the staff have always been approachable and friendly. Being a defence family it’s vital to have a school where the kids feel secure and valued. Annandale Christian College has provided that for our family. We will be so sad to leave when we post out of Townsville. I would highly recommend ACC to anyone looking for a quality school.

This is a school that actively strives to put God first. I especially appreciate that my children are encouraged to talk about their faith, and express it, across all aspects of the College – they feel safe, loved and encouraged at ACC.