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.
