Rural and Remote Education - NSW

Rural

and Remote Education - NSW

Public Meeting, Walgett NSW,

3 March 1999 - notes

Staffing

Community members

expressed the desire to have local people employed in the Community of

Schools Program.

"You get good staff

in there, but then they get shipped out. When you get someone good in

there it's really important."

"At the end of last

year, I raised with the question to Ken Boston that we needed a principal

for 1999 [Walgett Primary School]. And he promised that there would be

someone there at the beginning of 1999. Our kids suffer and our parents

suffer. We should have a principal appointed as a permanent principal

now. You've got a principal there that's only casual. It's very difficult

for him to work with our kids and to work with our parents, because he

doesn't know how long he's going to be there does he?"

"One of the issues

is that between them the Federation and the Department have worked out

an incentive transfer scheme which actually gives you an incentive to

leave, it never gives you an incentive to stay."

It was claimed that

the schools train staff in specialist positions who then leave. "There

have been five principals at Walgett Primary School in ten years. Staff

rotate through the system so quickly that by the time that they've learnt

their job, they're gone again. There is no corporate history in the school

about things that have been tried and have failed or things that are really

successful. You just lose so much expertise on a regular basis that the

school's are always spending their money, their time and their effort

on rebuilding the expertise that is lost." An example was given of an

excellent music program that ceased when the staff member left.

"The teachers who

are in these schools are either in their first permanent appointment,

or they are casual, or they are in their first executive appointment.

There is nobody ever who is secure in their job and who knows the job

inside out and can actually support young staff coming in who are having

horrible problems. Everybody is actually learning their job and by the

time they've learnt it they go."

"So many of our young

teachers come here and they are enthusiastic and they really want to succeed,

but because there is no support structure to help them in the classroom,

they leave."

"You get a class

by Year 2 that's had four different teachers. What kind of continuity

of learning program every happens?"

"Continuity is what

the kids need around here. They don't need chopping and changing."

"There is only one

reason why people stay in Walgett. They either have a partner here or

they see it as an opportunity for promotion."

Education and employment

A local employer

expressed concern that the TAFE programs and the school curriculum didn't

offer students training for work in primary industry. Students who go

away to tertiary study don't come back and work in primary industry.

School staff explained

that agriculture is a component of the Year 7 and 8 Design and Technology

course. In Years 11 and 12 agriculture was offered but there wasn't sufficient

demand so the school offered a course in Rural Industries. This course

is TAFE accredited.

Literacy

Concern was expressed

at students' level of literacy.

It was explained

that there are a number of support programs in literacy in the primary

school.

The school's performance

on the Basic Skill Tests shows that on a "a comparative basis across the

state we've got a long way to go."

The Community of

Schools Program will support literacy and numeracy in the school.

Attendance

Concern was expressed

that some families send their children away to secondary school and the

ratio of Aboriginal to non-Aboriginal children in each school.

"95% of the children

in the primary school are Aboriginal. Are we teaching them the right way?

There could be another way of teaching these kids. It's no good sending

a kid up to high school if he can't read and write, because he's not going

to stay there."

"I always say to

people who say 'You're not teaching my kids', I say 'You don't send them,

I can't teach them. I am now teaching some of the children of the children

that I used to chase at high school for non-attendance."

"I think we do it

a bit better in the early schooling. In the high school it is very hard

to get motivation going."

"Community school

partnership needs to be built and cement that if we are going to address

this attendance issue, if we're going to address this issue about literacy

and numeracy. That is our number one priority."

A program has started

in conjunction with TAFE to work on the attendance of the high school

students.

"Over the last four

years, attendance at the high school has improved from 60% to 80%. At

the primary school we have an attendance figure in the mid-70s. We do

have difficulty in breaking patterns of long periods of non-attendance."

It was suggested

that attendance could be improved if parents were involved in the schooling

and if there were culturally relevant curriculum and resources.

Cultural awareness

In the past Cultural

Awareness Days were held for all schools in the Walgett community.

Comments were made

about A-day, held in June, and the low level of attendance of non-Aboriginal

people. Invitations are sent to the whole community.

"Even though the

teaching staff do come in and stay for two or three years, the community

people are always here. We need to pull together and start not losing

faith in ourselves and our kids."

"The teachers that

are coming in have little experience in the classroom. We need teachers

with experience and confidence in the classroom, so that they will then

be confident in teaching Aboriginal culture. We need a local perspective.

We need to get Aboriginal parents within the school to be teaching. Once

you teach a teacher all you know, then they move on with that expertise."

It was argued that

before teachers come out to these isolated areas they need cultural awareness

training. "Every community in these areas is different. If they come to

Goodooga we want to give them a week out there before they get into the

classroom. They're not going to understand the kids out there. What they

need to do is to understand there's a background there before white man

came. There's a back ground there when white man came. These teachers

need to know the background of these people."

Curriculum

Concern was expressed

that the curriculum is not meeting the needs of the children.

"There are a whole

range of factors that have an impact on the way children are performing

in schools. The schools are delivering. The teachers are doing a good

job in circumstances which are difficult."

"There has been some

tremendous growth in student outcomes. The High School, in the English

Literacy and Learning Assessment, is seen as one of the pilot projects

for a study from Macquarie University for the growth in student achievement

from Year 7 to Year 8. They came up to find out what the teachers were

doing to get that level of growth in student outcome."

Concern was expressed

about the content of statewide testing not catering for the experience

of country children.

Children going away

to school

"If I child has a

plan, of let's say in the extreme, a doctor, then I think we'll all agree

that he or she has a far better chance of being a doctor in the metropolitan

area than at Walgett high school."

"In small communities,

my children have thrived because they can get the help and the expertise

of the teachers."

"In Rowena, every

child goes away to school. There are really limited places where people

who have a commitment to public education can send their children. They

either have to make private boarding arrangements or they have to send

their children to Yanco or to Hurlstone in Sydney which are the only facilities

for boarding that the Department actually arranges. They also have very

little access to those kinds of specialist schools that children in Sydney

absolutely take for granted."

Distance Education

"There is an isolation

problem for distance education children. They really need help. My kids

can't talk to their teachers by radio because we don't have a satisfactory

radio system. We have to rely on the telephone. This is not good because

they can't join in library lessons, or assembly where they talk to the

children in their class. They only get their two half hour sessions a

week with their personal teacher because of the cost of the telephone.

If we had a radio that worked then they could have after school chat time

with their friends."

"We also have a problem

with teacher turnover. We just get them trained in how to communicate

with the isolated children because they're working by tape, by letter

and by radio lesson. We just get them trained up and they're gone."

Last

updated 2 December 2001.