Many of these students lack confidence, which is exploited by the school, which tells them the VCE is too hard. They are told it would be so much easier if they opted to not pursue a score. Students are called in again and again, often without parents being informed, to have "conversations" about their futures while being stood over and silenced.

The process starts at the beginning of each year, when senior staff target students in the senior year. These students present as being poor academic performers, with behavioural or learning difficulties and mental illness. They have low levels of critical literacy and come from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Too many students in year 12 are graduating with neither an ATAR score or a VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) at a school where I have taught. The students did not pursue a traineeship and did not undertake extra VET courses.

This victory is then celebrated and precedents are set in student culture that no ATAR is an attractive, no-stress approach to finishing schooling. Never mind, of course, the impossible position that these students will then be placed in after leaving the school gates.

This practice is never publicly discussed with the majority of staff nor does it appear in any written communication. Teaching staff find out via the student grapevine or an email informing them a student within their care has opted to go "no ATAR" – yet teachers are rarely asked to give feedback on their progress.

Staff involved in forcing these student decisions are occasionally heard boasting in the staff room about how they "got another one". They express frustration with the students who are seen to be resisting their push.

By the end of each year, senior classes are littered with completely disaffected and disengaged students who are merely killing time being babysat until graduation, but are paying their school fees. Alternative programs, though suggested by concerned teaching staff, are not arranged for them apart from modified versions of the same tasks the "regular" students are doing. These tasks do nothing for student learning apart from tick a box to say that a child had completed them. Students are not given the opportunity to pursue trade pathways or develop any skills.

Some students fight against this pressure but are inevitably worn down when the "no ATAR" choice is presented as a fait accompli. Many have so little self-esteem to start with that they fold immediately. One student battled all year against incredible odds pitted against them by a chaotic home life until they dropped their studies just prior to their exams because they were told "they would probably fail anyway so what was the point".

And what is the point?