I can’t really comment as most of my children were educated in State schools in Ireland and Irish schools and Australian State schools cannot be compared.
My youngest son was educated in Australia and never attended a State school.
All of them were successful academically and equally successful in the post school world.
They all earn a sight more than I ever did and only the youngest still has a mortgage.
One daughter reached Commissioned rank in the police before resigning to start a family, the other is a Nursing Administrator.
One son is a grazier another is a senior councillor in mental health,interstate and another has his own taxi in rural Ireland as well as a farm and is completing a Doctorate in History, just for something to keep his mind active and the youngest is an IT wizard who works in the stratosphere of ideas.
They all went to schools that graded students on academic ability and it worked.

Yes WTF? & that is why all important exams should be externally set & marked. That way a teacher can not teach only how to pass the exam.

My wife & I established for the P&C a School textbook hire scheme for our local 1600 student high school. By it's 3Rd year it was saving the kids parents about half the cost of necessary books & equipment, & earning the P&C over $150,000 a year to inject into the school.

Fortunately this gave us a bit of leverage when we wanted answers. Our eldest daughter was having some trouble with math C. I was looking forward to the year 11 half year test to try to find her weakness. To my amazement the kids were not given their test paper to bring home for parents perusal. When she asked for it she was told they were not allowed to be given out.

With our leverage I organised an interview with the head master & the head of the math department. It transpired that the math department had been using the same test for 6 years, & giving the papers out would necessitate writing a new test each exam.

After some discussion it was resolved that in future test papers & actual tests would be given to the kids to take home for parents to check their kids progress.

I don't think I was a favorite parent of that math HOD, but then he was far from one of mine, so that is fair.

Hasbeen,
When my eldest started school in Ireland I was amazed at the approach of the History Master to the subject.
Each pupil was to approach the subject from the imagined (or actual where it was known) attitude of an ancestor of the time or the Chief of the greater family.
This gave the students a personal interest in historical events.
Of course in the West of Ireland it wasn’t hard to fit into this scheme, some of the kids played in castles that were associated with their families and we had one ruined castle and one restored as a National Monument within twenty miles of home.
Naturally there arose some disputes between descendants of native Irish and the Normans but as most families had descended from marriages between the two it was easily defused.
Those few children who had foreign parents were encouraged to find out their ancestry and thus bring in different perspectives.
History was a favourite subject, learning formal Irish wasn’t but they’re all good speakers despite having a somewhat ungrammatical grounding at home.

Dear Nathan,

'Education' comes from 'Educe' and by the Merriam-Webster dictionary,
"Educe" = to draw out (something hidden, latent, or reserved)

The formal "education" system is a parody of this.

Instead of drawing out our latent inner resources, they push in external information, they indoctrinate, then like a stage-magician they pull out a rabbit from the hat and say "Oh, look what we found inside"...

Nevertheless, if you understand the reasons they indoctrinate children, then you would also understand their need to grade the results, which measure how successfully (for them) your child can be absorbed in their employment swamp, whether they want it or not.