Rural and Remote Education - SA

Rural and Remote

Education - SA

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.