Rural and Remote Education - NSW

Rural

and Remote Education - NSW

Bourke Secondary Students

meeting, 1 March 1999 - notes

The group developed

a list of issues they wished to address. Participating students were then

split into pairs and allocated one or two of these issues. They were asked

to prepare three sub-topics.

1. What is the current

   situation on that issue?

2. How does that

   affect you and your classmates?

3. How can the situation

   be improved?

The students addressed

• inexperienced

  teachers

• staff turnover
• impact of low

  student numbers

• combined classes
• subject choice
• Distance Education
• resources
• racism
• isolation
• positive things.

Inexperienced teachers

"The situation is

that first year out teachers come to Bourke as their first appointment.

A lot of the teachers here, Bourke is their only experience. Last year

we got three new executive at the same time. And for the HSC marking our

teachers aren't released to do it because they can't get a casual to come

out and relieve them. So only one of our teachers has ever marked the

HSC. No other teachers have ever marked it and so they lack the experience

to prepare us for HSC exams."

"One of our new teachers

actually has no degree to teach Year 11 and 12 and that's a head teacher.

As a result of that obviously the students aren't getting the best teaching

they should be getting. Our opinion is that the situation is detrimental

to our final result. The school needs more stability which will then help

us to achieve higher marks."

Staff turnover

"Most of the teachers,

the new ones, do their three years and as soon as that's up they're out

of here straight away. That's a high turnover of teachers because we can

get up to four new teachers a year."

"In the last 18 months

we have had 3 teachers for English so that's just one example of what

happens in the school. You get teachers chopping and changing and going

out of the school and coming into the school and it takes a long time

to settle down and pick up where other teachers have left off. Like the

Business Studies teacher last year, the old teacher was seven months behind

and she had to catch Year 12 up that much before their exams. So it makes

it hard for other teachers' jobs.

"It's hard getting

used to different styles of teachers."

"We reckon that in

order to give the school some stability that the executive staff especially

should be made to stay for five years instead of three to decrease the

amount of turnover in that part of staff. And with the other teachers

there shouldn't be more than two coming in and going out each year so

that there's not so much change for the students. And perhaps to keep

them here they should be given an incentive, like given more points. They

already get points to come here but they should actually be given more

because they just do it for 3 years and that's it, they don't stay for

too long. So maybe if they were given more points or more money they'd

be inclined to stay.

"Getting young teachers

into the school is alright. But when it's their first time away from home,

away from Sydney, they think it's really isolated and it's hard to expect

them to like it. And also in the first 6 months or so when they get here,

the majority of the time they don't even want to be here. And the community

doesn't really accept new teachers very easily."

Student numbers

- impacts

"Lack of students.

Most of the Catholic School [primary] kids go away to [high] school. They

encourage them to go away, I think. The Principal of the high schools

sends his kids away and most of the teachers. Other kids in the community

bag the kids who go to school - putting them down all the time because

they want a good education."

"The general opinion

of our community is that the school is just hopeless and the children

don't learn anything. Students just don't come up to scratch. Well, since

I've been at the high school a lot of my friends go away and their parents

say to me 'You should go away. You should go away.' and that perhaps you

shouldn't be there and after a while its irritating, it's all you ever

get. And then they think that my parents obviously don't want the best

education for me because they haven't sent me away, which isn't true."

"What happened last

year was, out of all the kids that came from Bourke district, the one

kid that stayed in Bourke actually got the highest TER out of everyone.

So I don't think that there is any reason to think that it's not a good

education."

"I think also that

the ratio of teachers to students should not be the same as it is in the

city. We can't get more teachers because we have a lack of bums on seats

as they say."

"It means some classes

don't get up because there's not enough students and it also means we

have to have combined classes because there's not enough to make a full

class. It also means teachers are teaching classes they're not experts

in - there's no Aboriginal teacher to teach Aboriginal Studies, the language

teachers takes it. The Art teacher has to teach Music and History. We've

got no Music or Drama."

"We haven't got the

teachers we need for each subject that we want to do. They should just

get more teachers. We have the Food Tech. teacher teaching PD Health and

the Science teachers teaching Maths. It's all they can do but it shouldn't

really be happening."

"Because the classes

are so small here you get more attention. But it does depend on whether

the teacher wants to do it or if they just want the money."

HSC students reported

that in Year 12 they have a full-time load with no free periods and no

sport. For example, a course with 200 hours as the standard is taught

to them in 250 hours. The reasons include that they start the academic

year a week later and that they have participated in so many combined

classes. The extra hours are needed to ensure the course is covered and

there is time for revision. It makes for very intense days and pushes

all preparation and revision into after-school hours.

Combined classes

"It's mainly the

senior years like Year 10 and 12 are combined. There's not enough kids

to make up two classes or because there's an insufficient number of teachers.

Basically in the school there are less kids say in Year 12 taking one

subject and they have to be combined into Year 11 doing the same subject

because there aren't enough teachers for two classes, they can't spare

them. Combined classes are a problem as they lead to a more stressful

workload for teachers. It makes it harder for them as they have to teach

two different years in one lesson. There is no one-on-one between teacher

and students and we can't ask them questions because they are too busy

working with Year 11. Teachers really have no time to spend with students,

doing the work and answering questions as they are continually running

back and forth between the two years and have not enough time. But at

the moment they are introducing double periods in out timetable so it

makes it easier, its not as hard for the teachers too."

"They try to share

it but you if you need to ask a question you know they have another class

and you have to wait. And you don't really like asking in case you interrupt.

It depends on how good the teacher is too, some teachers are pretty good

at dealing with having two classes but some aren't. Like in Maths we'd

sit there for forty minutes and then she's show up for us to do the rest

of the homework because she'd be teaching Year 12 and then we're just

sat there and then we have to do the rest of the homework that she has

given at the start or she's been able to organise herself. Most of the

teachers are good, they can hold the line, sometimes."

Subject choice

"At our school [Pera

Bore Christian Community School] we get to choose two electives. We do

one by Distance Education. The other one is a choice of three: Textiles,

Computers and Food Tech. It's not a very wide choice. Everyone at our

school does Drama and Year 7 does Music. Our school only goes to Year

10. Sometimes the subjects haven't been taught properly so when you go

away in Year 11 it's taught a lot differently. It's really hard to figure

out and catch up."

Distance Education

"A lot of questions

you can't answer and none of the teachers can help you. I have trouble

keeping up."

"In our Year 10 class

there are 10 people and five subjects chosen from Distance Ed and there's

only one teacher to supervise. He doesn't know everything about those

subjects."

Resources

"We don't have enough

textbooks and what we do have are badly damaged. Megan and I have Business

Studies class from 3 'til 7 and at the moment we can't have textbooks

each because it's our last and it costs too much to order two just for

us. S our teacher has to photocopy pages out of the book and then give

them to us. And that's the same with Legal Studies too. And that's sort

of a problem because we have to keep track of them and try to organise

them."

"A lot of the time

we have one textbook between two. Or we've had to use photocopies."

"And with the sports

equipment: basically, we need sports equipment. What we have is old, we

need stuff."

Racism

"The racism is mainly

between the kids, not the teachers, it's mainly the younger years, like

Years 7 and 8. At recess sometimes it gets that bad that we sit there

and all of the kids are, like, yelling abuse at us and on one occasion

we have had to have a couple of teachers on duty in case they get too

bad. But it's mainly just between the kids."

"It is both ways

- by and against Aboriginal kids. They just can't play together. I don't

know why."

Isolation

"It's a major issue

because of the location. We are pretty disadvantaged. I'd like to talk

about regional athletics. If we go away to regional or zone athletics

the school pays for it. But if we go away to State - to Sydney - the school

doesn't take any responsibility. It's because of lack of money and it's

a small school. It's up to us students and our parents to raise the money.

The school does fund-raising and the P&C helps. But they don't raise much."

"And usually there's

no time for our parents to take us because they're working. It's a long

way to travel."

"Recently a Bourke

student had to leave and go away to a sporting high school to train. There's

a lack of coaches in Bourke."

"There's a lack of

funding for transport and coaching."

"When people want

to pursue a sport they can only go so far without a coach. But there's

no coaching here at all. I've had to go away to swimming camp which costs

a lot of money. And it's only for a weekend or a few days. When we get

there all the others have their own coaches. They're wearing Institute

of Sport jackets and they say 'Where are you from?', and we say, 'Bourke'."

"When a team has

to go away a teacher has to go with them. And when they get to a higher

level they have to stay overnight. And there aren't that many casual teachers

to take over. So they don't take us away as much as they could. They shouldn't

take away HSC teachers which they did last year which disadvantaged the

HSC students."

"They should make

State competitions more central to everywhere. They do swap it around

the regions but if it's in our region it would probably be in Dubbo. I

think swimming is always in Sydney. If you go to State in Sydney just

about everyone there is Sydney people because people from country areas

just can't go; it's just too long. If the parents can't go, the kids aren't

going to go by themselves. You've got to spend money going there and then

you don't get proper coaches here: it's a waste of money."

Positive things

• plenty of computers

  in the library and in the computer room - "We've got three new IBM computers

  and we've also got Macs."

• internet access

  is good and reliable - "The system is networked."

• textbooks - "Unlike

  in Sydney schools, most of our textbooks are bought for us."

• small classes,

  one-on-one teaching and you know most of the people.

• "I really love

  being out of town in the country".

• "Young, new teachers

  bring new things to the school when they come. It's just the problem

  that they leave so soon."

Last

updated 2 December 2001.