School and Teaching

Hannah on her first day of school. She was quite nervous, but then, so were her parents as it was a brand new experience for all of us. Since Dale and I were teaching, Hannah's Australian "grandmother", Rose Butler (also a retired teacher from Hannah's school), accompanied her to school. It took a little while, but Hannah settled in, got the lay of the land and system, and has made some good friends.



One of Hannah's Year 2 teachers, Viv Heckels, pictured here with Hannah, is quite a famous local artist. Hannah enjoys the days she teaches because they do a lot of art. It is not a subject area in which her parents excel, but clearly Hannah has a bit of a creative bent. Two of her pieces were selected out of over 800 entries submitted from Preschool to Grade 12 from all over the Toowoomba School District. The pieces were juried, so we are very proud of Hannah's accomplishments.

This is the gallery display, and Hannah's two pieces in particular.
















We are both assigned to state, or public, schools. There is an independent, or private, system that thrives here, especially at the high school level and it offers everything from Catholic schooling to schools specializing in agriculture and the bush. Children in rural areas are in the old one-room schoolhouses where a single person serves as teacher and adminstrator and all 25 students work in one room. Students all wear uniforms and, while it is not compulsory to do so and no one can technically be forced to wear one, the children do comply, though with varying degrees of compliance.

Schools are not one big physical plant but instead are divided into blocks, each one holding administrative offices or year-level sets of classrooms, for example, or teacher aide offices and resource and specialist rooms. Washrooms are in separate blocks, "bubblers", or water fountains, are all outside, as are the "ports", or racks where students keep their knapsacks (both shown in these photos). There are no cloakroom areas inside classrooms, no built-in cupboards and storage areas, and very little shelving. Kids put all their books in a tray which slides underneath their desktop. This tray is erroneously named a "tidy tray"! They also have chair bags, which are like slip covers with back pockets, and they hold texts, exercise books and an assortment of other goods from drumsticks and smelly socks to school "jumpers" (sweat tops). Cleaning staff is not under a district umbrella but instead are hired by each school and are part of a school's budget. The desks are wiped every Monday and carpets vacuumed each night with a small vacuum that is strapped onto someone's back. You can imagine what little suction power it has! By the same token, students eat outside, in covered shed areas, so there's very little mess from food in classrooms, except on inside days, and the grounds are spotless compared to home. And yes, they have plenty of crows here, too, so you can't blame it on our fine-feathered friends! Someone also has a fulltime job doing maintenance around the school, mowing lawns and keeping gardens, as well as clearing pathways with the leaf blower, doing building repairs, and retrieving balls from the roof.

There is more prep time here but also significantly more duty, or supervision, time. Toowoomba schools are also some of the few schools that still run interschool sport during school time. As such, one lunch hour per week and Friday afternoons are devoted to sport for Grade 6 and 7 teachers. Then, teachers are on supervision at all break times, which means at least one duty of 15-20 minutes per day. Ontop of that, staff meetings are weekly, and they are really professional development presentations or workshops. In addition, each teacher is expected to be a member of some sort of school-based team, whether it be for curriculum or for technology, for example, and that means a meeting at least every two or three weeks, as well!

Dale, exchanging with Phil, is in a Grade 5 class at Middle Ridge State School, and Jodi, exchanging with Jo, is in a Grade 6 class at Wilsonton State School. With a population of almost 650, Middle Ridge is considered to be a fairly average-sized elementary school while Wilsonton, at 730, is considerably larger. There are about three to three and a half classes per grade level, most intermediates having 30 in a class. There is no contract language around special needs because, much to our surprise, there is not full mainstreaming and integration. There are students who have learning challenges in regular classes, but students identified as "special needs" are in separate classes in blocks called the SEU (Special Education Unit). Both schools also have preschools which, beginning in 2007, will be changed to a year called "Prep", which will not be mandatory but will be free schooling. The government hopes to address issues around school readiness and daycare all on one swoop, I think. There is no such thing as Kindergarten here but children in Year One, or Grade One, would be Kindergarten age. They are, however, in school for a full day. Hence, our students are actually a year younger than their peers would be in the same grade back home. The Middle School model is alive and well here, but it is run as a "school within a school". Professional learning communities are also well established.

Recently, Hannah and Dale's school had a celebration of learning and community called "Feast in the Forest". Because Middle Ridge has a large forest at one side and its school vision is around nurturing the seeds of today for the forests of tomorrow, there were all sorts of activities centered on the forest and a forest theme. Jodi took the morning off and helped in Hannah's room and then met a few of her school friends. (Hannah is with Corrie-Ann and Keely in these photos.) Hannah's class, typical of a primary one, has 25 students in it. That number has gone as low as 22 and as high as 26. It's a real challenge, at the best of times, to meet needs with numbers that high, especially when they are 6- and 7-year-olds.