Devonport secondary students meeting, 3 November 1999 - notes
Two student meetings were convened in Devonport: one with primary students from Miandetta Primary School and Devonport Primary School and the other with secondary students from Devonport High School. This is a record of the meeting with the secondary school students.
One of the most important issues for the secondary students at Devonport was the need for more interaction with other schools and other students including more opportunity for travel and interaction for social, sporting and academic purposes.
Secondary schools in rural and remote parts of Tasmania are divided into junior secondary (to Year 10) and senior colleges to Year 12. Students would prefer that the 2 forms of schooling be integrated so that could stay on at their school to complete Years 11 and 12.
Retention rates in North Tasmania
'Mostly, the reason that kids drop out of school is lack of motivation and boredom. Some kids live on their own and they don't have parents telling them what to do.'
'They feel that there is no work here in Tasmania and so what is the point of staying on at school. There is no point in going to University because there are hardly any opportunities here. People go to the mainland to find work. I would prefer to stay here in Tasmania but I will probably have to move because there is no work here.'
'Some kids left school at Year 8 and you see them around town doing nothing. Some kids who left school now have pretty reasonable jobs, but there are many that don't. One girl dropped out this year but she has a part time job lined up.'
Disability
'We have staircases at our school so we don't have kids with disabilities because they can't get up and down the stairs. We only have a few students with really mild problems. There is a special school nearby and that is where the disabled students go.'
Internet access
'We have good computer facilities at our school. We have just got new computers at school and they are pretty fast.'
'Most of us have computers at home and Internet access is not too expensive. We only have to make a local call to get Internet access. I have a brother who goes to University so we get discount Internet rates.'
Travel and transport
'Some kids travel on the bus and they say that for some it is an hour on the bus. Ulverston has got a pretty bad drug problem so some kids come here from Ulverston. These kids miss out on after-school stuff because they are always travelling.'
Multiculturalism
'There are hardly any non-Australian students here. Everyone is pretty much the same. There are a few German people around and we have had a few exchange students.'
Devonport
'There is not too much crime here. You can pretty much leave your door open and people won't come in. It is pretty safe here.'
Gender
'There are many more boys at our school than girls. There are not too many sports for girls here. Only netball I think. There are about 10 boys to every 6 girls in our year, but this is different to other years when there was at least 1 more girl in each year than boys. About the same number of girls go on to Year 11 and 12.'
Student Representative Council
'We liaise between the students and the teachers. We also arrange the school socials and we do fund raising for the school.'
'Sometimes the teachers will say at a morning meeting that the SRC has made a decision about something and then later they tell us (the SRC) about it. They then tell us to do the organising.'
Excursions and social arrangements
'We have tried a few times to go on trips like taking the band to the Rock Challenge thing. The teachers wouldn't let us do it though. They thought it was too much hassle. We need more variety to do some interesting things then maybe people would be more interested in school and stay on longer. We planned to go to Launceston on the bus and come home that night. We were going to go after school for the Rock Challenge and be back by the evening. It makes you give up on things. All we wanted to do was to represent our school. The teachers tend to think about the negatives and they don't seem to concentrate on the positives.
'Once they were not going to let us have one of our socials, but they changed their minds after we put them under some pressure and they let us have it in the end.'
Teachers
'We have got some better than average and some worse than average teachers.'
Last updated 2 December 2001.
