Meeting with secondary students from the Port Lincoln area, 11 August 1999 - notes
Commission staff met with secondary students from Port Lincoln High School, St Joseph's Port Lincoln and Cummins Area School. Primary students from Tumby Bay Area School attended a separate meeting.
Cummins Area School
The Cummins Area School has approximately 400 students and covers Reception through to Year 12. The school has a large catchment area including Cockaleechie and Yeelanna. There are 36 students currently enrolled in Year 12 and approximately the same number enrolled in Year 11.
Port Lincoln High School
Port Lincoln High School has 850 students from Year 7 to Year 12. There are 85 Aboriginal students at the school.
St Joseph's
Provides education from Reception to Year 12 for 700 students. There are 47 boarders (secondary years) at the school. They have one Aboriginal Assistant/Aide, and about 6 Aboriginal students. St Joseph's is the only Catholic school on the Eyre Peninsula outside of Whyalla.
Tumby Bay Area School
Provides education for 260 students from Reception to Year 12.
Teachers
"The teachers don't want to come here. We should change the attitude of teachers so that they actually want to come to the country. If we had more teachers we could have smaller class sizes so that the students needs could be met."
"You know most teachers, you can talk to them. It is good having a school chaplain to talk to. At St Joseph's if you have a problem with work or anything, you can talk to the teachers after school."
Extra curricula activities and sport
"We can't just go to Adelaide for the day to see a play. We don't have music teachers so we have to use DUCT (lessons over the telephone) which is very difficult to use. We should write to other schools so we understand each others' school environment."
"At St Joseph's we have sports days once a year and the athletes get to go out of Port Lincoln to Port Pyree, Whyalla and Adelaide to see what the rest of the State looks like."
"We have transition trips for kids in Year 11 to see the Universities and this is good because most of us have never set foot on a university."
Facilities
"We don't get as much funding or as many resources as the cities. We have good buses but they don't have any heaters or air conditioning. We are lucky that we have lots of computers so we can all go on them."
The Port Lincoln community
The students enjoyed the small and intimate nature of the community. They saw the advantages of close relationships with the whole school community.
"The year levels are small. There are 60 people doing Year 11 and even less doing Year 12. We have more teacher contact because we are a smaller school. We have 800 kids at the school because we go from Reception through to Year 12."
Computers
"We have plenty of computers at St Joseph's and we have Internet access. We have just got video conferencing but we have not used it yet."
"Our computers at Cummins are very old and very slow."
Music
"At Port Lincoln High School we can do music from year 8 right through to Year 12. We can record our own music at school because we have a recording studio at the school. We have an Aboriginal Nunga band too and we got a national award for our music this year. We will also be making a video clip at the school."
"The ensemble mob have individual lessons with the teachers. Most of the band members could already play before they joined the band."
"At St Joseph's we don't have music so we are not able to do what they do at the High School. We don't have drama past Year 10 either."
"I would like to study music but I can't do it here. I could not get any money for boarding because I was told that I could learn music over the phone. I used to go to a boarding school in Adelaide but my parents couldn't afford it so I had to come back here. I have had to give up music. I don't think it is fair that I can't get any money for boarding because you can't really learn music here."
Language
"We can study Indonesian and Japanese at the school. If you want to do another language the school is pretty good and they let you do it over the air. We have students doing French and other languages too."
"If we don't have the numbers then you have to study by Open Access. It is not as good as having a teacher. There is no one there to push you and there is no one to ask questions of."
Specialist subjects
The Cummins Area School does everything it can to provide as many subjects as possible for the students. This means that some of the classes are very small at the senior level. The school offers Agricultural Science and Home Economics.
"We have so many technical subjects at our school. We only have the basics as far as the academic subjects and there are hardly any cultural experiences here in Port Lincoln."
"We don't have any Aboriginal Studies at St Joseph's. Even in Australian Studies we hardly get to learn about Aboriginal culture."
Anti-racist policy
"Our school is really good on racism too. If someone is racist, our teachers are right onto it. They have counselling too for people who are bullying or are racist. But the problem here is that there are no Aboriginal languages and there is no Aboriginal Studies because nobody wants to study it."
Costs of travel for education
"When we need to go to Adelaide for our subjects it costs us a lot of money. The students in Adelaide can go and watch Parliament sitting, but if we want to go then we have to pay an airfare of $202 and then accommodation. It ends up costing $500 for 2 days there. We don't get very much funding to cover the costs so mainly we have to pay ourselves. Sometimes we have to go to Adelaide for plays for our English subjects because there is no live theatre here in Port Lincoln."
"There is so much that we would like to do but we can't do it because our parents just can't afford it."
Lack of teaching staff
"We have a lack of teachers at the moment. We have primary teachers teaching the High School students at Cummins Area School."
"At the High School the teachers are so old. They taught most of our parents. We also have some very young teachers who are about 23 years old. We'd like to have some teachers in-between."
Graffiti
"The graffiti is gross in this school and so are the facilities here. The toilets are terrible. Part of the problem is that the school looks gross. The school is painted red and green. We should be able to paint the school our way. If we could paint murals on the walls then maybe people wouldn't graffiti them."
TAFE and higher education
"The whole tertiary education thing is bad. We have no access to information. This year we had 3 people come over from TAFE, Flinders and Uni of SA in Adelaide to give a half an hour talk. This happens once a year and it is not enough. We have an end of year transition trip but that happens in Year 11. We get no funding for that. We pay ourselves and we go over on the bus."
"Then there is the cost of living in Adelaide. We need more government funding to support us living there for university. We just don't have the same opportunities as the kids who live in Adelaide. They can live at home and catch the bus to Uni."
"If you live in a country area you are more likely to come back to the country so it would be an investment for the government to support us in our tertiary study."
"The course that I want to do is only available at Adelaide TAFE. I have to look at staying in Adelaide and that's going to cost $168 per week. Then I have to go to Adelaide in August to talk to the lecturers and that is going to cost me."
"Getting to and from Roxby Downs is really hard. The bus system is hopeless and there are barely any flights between Roxby and Adelaide. There is just so much travel and it costs so much money."
Non school attenders
"There are kids who don't come because they can't stand school and they can't stand the teachers. Sometimes their parents don't think it is worth it and the kid is needed on the farm. There are also heaps of traineeships here, especially in the fisheries."
Disability
"We have a girl who is in a wheelchair. Each year that she moves through the school they modify the facilities in the school."
"At our school we had 2 kids with intellectual disabilities but they left after Year 7 because the school could not cope with them."
Last updated 2 December 2001.
