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.