SiMERR news

Four years ago, the central coast communities incorporating Penguin and Ulverstone had one of the worst retention rates in Australia of students leaving year 10 and moving into further education or work. There were no Year 11/12 Colleges or TAFE campuses in the community – students had to bus out to Devonport or Burnie. That still is the case, but now at Penguin High School, of their 65 grade 10 leavers from last year only one is not in further education or work. A great result and reward for the school’s hard work.

So what could make such a substantial difference?

First was recognition by the community that poor retention affects everything in a community – community health, business and future sustainability. The Central Coast Council set up a Youth Engaged Steering Committee with representatives from education, business, service clubs, parents and young people. The council provided “in-kind” support and gained funding form the Leven Training Centre and the Tasmanian Community Fund to employ a Project Co-ordinator.

General Manger of the Council, Kathy Schaefer, told me the secret to the success of the project was the coordinator. “Teachers and business people speak a different language – they see things differently and have different ways of operating. Business can be turned off by the educational jargon and the intellectualising. They are hesitant to employ young people because of their lack of commitment to a company or lack of focus on long term goals – generation Y characteristics. Teachers are concerned that business just want to fill short term skill shortages rather than taking into account education for the ‘whole person’.

“The project coordinator came from a business background and could understand their needs, but was also a parent who wanted the best outcomes for his young adult children. He was able to mediate between the groups to help them understand each other better and to find innovative solutions; better work experiences for students, mentoring programs and improving pathways. We also brought in Michael McQueen an expert on how to work with Generation Y employees, to help business understand the issues in having young people on their work force.

“The biggest challenge we are now facing is that the funding to support the coordinator is ending in June. We always intended for the program to be sustainable in the coordinator’s absence and we hope that each of the four schools in the district, with the support of council, will take responsibility for managing the project. It is important to continue to build on the relationships between education and business…. To keep the conversations alive.”

Dr Bernardo León de la Barra has been on a mission the last 2 years to improve opportunities for students to do hands-on science in the physical sciences and engineering areas. It is about putting science back on the agenda in primary schools and exposing students in high schools to experiences that might make them consider further training in science and engineering. He has a long term plan of changing the way teachers think about what is possible in teaching science and helping teachers with little confidence in teaching the physical sciences to have a go.

He has worked to develop a range of resources or kits for teachers to use in their classrooms, has offered sessions where classes can come to the university and has run Professional Learning for teachers. While the resources are well supported by learning sequences, the barriers to teachers using them seem to be time. Teachers seem to have no time to learn about something new, or no time to modify their teaching approaches.

In a new project this year, supported by ASISTM funding, Bernardo is working with 3 girls schools. To overcome the time barrier he has recruited professional learning people from Robotics Tasmania, TAFE and Hydro Discovery Centre to work in classes alongside teachers. Students will be exposed to robotics, balloon and electrical powered vehicles and power generation activities. They will be supported by mentors – young women doing science, engineering or technology degrees.

Bernardo is doing this on top of a full teaching and research load at the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, UTAS. His enthusiasm and commitment to this issue saw him winning a Churchill Fellowship last year where he went to the USA and Scandinavia to look at hands-on science in Exploratoriums as well as doing courses in how to create and deliver engineering programs in primary schools. “The USA has some of the best of the best – we should be using some of their resources, rather than re-inventing the wheel.”

While Bernardo has come across many barriers in the implementation phase in schools, he is as enthusiastic as ever, and with every obstacle he has sought to find solutions and new partners to help him.

As part of the national SiMERR program an Australia-wide survey was carried out to pinpoint key issues in rural and regional education. Dr Kim Beswick and Dr Natalie Brown conducted the Tasmania section of the survey using a mixture of case studies and quantitative data.

The executive summary of the national survey is here and the fuller version here. Issues included the impact of effective School Leadership, how to co-ordinate Government efforts, how to retain and attract teachers, how to resource schools and create better pathway opportunities for students.

I caught up with the two Tasmanian researchers and asked them what most surprised them about their case study research. Dr Natalie Brown said “Hmmm. I guess this does surprise me but yet again it doesn’t! In terms of attracting and retaining teachers, money is not the most important thing. It is about much bigger issues – it is about the “whole person”. How teachers are valued for what they genuinely have to offer. Whether their partners have opportunity for work in the community, local customs, how you can grow in the job. ”

Dr Kim Beswick said “We also need to ask what does it mean to have a professional community to engage with? But it is bigger than just attracting teachers to local areas – it is about attracting any professional. So how do we build communities to support professionals? One need is to create schools where they are happy to send their kids, so they still can have high aspirations and pathways. And I guess one thing that came out strongly was how much School Leadership can affect the expectations that the students have. It needs to come from the top and be a whole school push.”

Read more of the Tasmanian case study

What issues are you seeing in your work in rural communities? Please add your comments and your suggestions…

Since beginning to help the UTAS SiMERR “hub” to organize their summit I have had some wonderful conversations with many amazing people. And there are a lot of amazing people here in Tasmania; people with a passion, with a commitment to change, who are champions (and sometimes even super-heroes – with cape and skin tight costumes.)

One “champion” is Robyn McKinnon, Tasmanian Young Australian of the Year. On her Facebook profile is the quote by Anne Frank “How wonderful it is that nobody need to wait a moment before starting to improve the world.” It is obvious that Robyn is enacting this out in her life. She has seen needs within her community and has found ways to bring people together, to get funding and to make something happen whether in youth mentoring, breakfast programs, crisis work. Her list of awards is astonishing… and she is only 25 years old. She reminded me why we have to keep talking about the issues of rural engagement and how it is through dedicated people that change can occur.

Margaret Meijers, is one of the teacher “champions” involved in the SiMERR projects. When she started teaching 12 years ago she was faced with the problem of how to engage disengaged high school students. “I was asked to teach business computing – how to indent a paragraph. I was bored witless and so were the students! I threw away the syllabus and looked for something that would engage them.”

That was the genesis of her passion about using game design to engage students while developing their problem solving, mathematical and design skills. Since then she has attracted funding, embedded it as part of the ICT program at New Town High School and created on-line resources which are used by students all around the state (and the world). It was a slow process with each path of the journey allowing her to refine and expand – and it still has its challenges to solve. Her work was recognized through the International Microsoft Innovative Teaching Awards as well as a number of other awards. Margaret says “When you are doing stuff like this you know you are making a difference.”
Perhaps one aspect of the SiMERR Summit is about meeting champions and being reminded how to be one ourselves!

We are taking registrations for the SiMERR Summit now. The summit is free and the details are available here.

We hope the day will help people network, explore possibilities and share concerns as well as learn about the projects that have already been completed.

If you can’t attend but would like to receive a publication of the 15 projects then please email susan.stack@utas.edu.au

If you would like to talk to someone about a potential idea for a project then email Jane.Watson@utas.edu.au