School of the Air

At Maronan we were introduced to The School of the Air. Kasie and Rose, living so far from town, as do many other children living on cattle and sheep stations throughout Australia, are educated from home, over the phone, or as it is now, via satellite link, or the internet, in as much of a classroom environment as can be achieved when the pupils are dispersed over 800 000 square kilometres.



Put in touch with the Principal by Nevenka, we visited the School of the Air in Mount Isa. Principal Thomas, or Sir, as we called him, showed us round, and told us about this remarkable school. The first one in Queensland was based in Cloncurry, in 1960, on the Royal Flying Doctor Service radio network, before both moved in 1964 to their current locations in Mount Isa. The School of the Air’s first teacher was a lady called Miss Bid O’Sullivan, for those of you keen to know such things.

The format is simple: the teachers broadcast radio lessons and mail learning materials to children spread throughout a vast area of the country. Mount Isa School of the Air covers Outback North West Queensland, encompassing some 150 rural properties, from the Gulf cattle stations of Normanton and Burketown, east to the sheep country on the plains of Julia Creek and Richmond, and south to the channel country of Birdsville and Bedourie and west as far as Brunette Downs in the Northern Territory, an area of almost a million square kilometres.



They have approximately 220 children from prep to year 10, looked after by a staff of 25 teachers. They are given one 30 minute lesson a day, the teacher talking during that time to no more than 10 kids at a time to provide them with some sort of classroom experience. All the children can hear the teacher, who asks questions individually to each student, then waits for the crackle of a response. The various methods of communication involved mean there are some delays and interference, with some using broadband internet, others on satellite phones, some on regular phones.

They try to give the kids some sort of a classroom experience so that they are not entirely isolated and dismayed on entering the boarding school the majority of them go to complete their studies. Roy, the Principal, told us that the main thrust of the School was in the development of classroom relationships while on air, and in the completion of the curriculum papers, the 30 minute phone lesson supplementing this work. For some of the pupils this half hour a day is the only contact they have with other human beings outside of their own family’s station.





Phil has a small injury whilst counting fake money




We were told that they were always very eager to relay news of any events – be it mustering the cattle or branding, a rodeo, gymkhana, all that is relevant to their lives; be it any rainfall, everyone wants to hear where the rain is, or new babies, human or animal, or even the fact that your mum called your dad a fat shit for kissing a girl at the pub on Saturday night, and that he’s now living in the shed having been kicked out.


We sit in one of the School of the Air Lessons

While sitting in on one lesson, entirely by the happenstance of intent it being the very one in which Kasie was about to recite her Christmas song, we saw how it works. The teacher asks questions, and a flurry of names reply they know the answer, or want the chance to speak, the teacher then says one of the names, and that child speaks. It’s very orderly. The ones who don’t shout that often are noticed and duly invited to participate, which they do, with a little cajoling. Kasie’s Christmas song by the way was Weird Al Jankovic’s The Night Santa Went Crazy, a story about St Nick’s descent into alcoholism, murder and jail.


Jack isAn intinerant
Then came the joke telling. It being the last day of term, they were taking it easy. Most of the jokes were pretty good, either that, or I’m that easily amused. What do you get if you cross a skunk with a horse? Whinny the poo. See, funny eh. What do you call a chicken crossing the road? Poultry in motion. This one slayed me: did you hear of the man who fell over in the upholstery store? He’s now fully recovered. Ha!

Later, as I was reading about the people in Mount Isa, in the early days, who went to see the small plane come in when it arrived every month or so, not because they were expecting anyone, but to see who it is, and what they wore, to see what fashion had been up to since the last person stepped off last dry seasons plane, I was called into one of the classrooms by a teacher, who urgently needed a Santa Claus for the year one children, because, wily things that they are, they would be sure to spot the voice of anyone they knew.

So I ho ho ho’d and Merry Christmas Children’ed them all. And a ho ho ho in Aussie is no easy thing I’ll have you know, although thinking about it, I don’t know why I felt I had to be Aussie Claus, it just sort of came out. And as soon as I asked them what do you all want for Christmas (“wot dou you nippers all wants fer christmers then eh?) there were what sounded like a million shrill little voices screaming into the headset asking for bikes and barbies and dolls and cars, cars? and a guitar, and and and... and while I did my best with my “G’day Lirrell Chil’ren” Aussie Claus impersonation, I have to say I did get a little flustered, especially when I told little Jeb he couldn’t have his Thai Bride because she’d asphyxiate in the post. Kids eh, they do say the funniest things.

Lessons centre around all subject areas, they have a fully automated library which involves mailing individual books to all 220 children. They even have Scouts of the Air, Religious Instruction, and Recorder and Violin instruction. The next week they were to have a Sports Day at Krutschnitt Oval, and all the kids, from all over come down for a week, and meet the classmates whose voices they have heard all year, and compete in a week of games and events.

The School of the Air is made all the more impressive when we were told by one of the teachers that for ten years he was a Home Tutor. A Home Tutor drives, in a car, he drives, from property to property, to talk with the children face-to-face. This gives the school a human face, gives the children the opportunity to ask questions they may be too shy to ask, or to just get to know one of their teachers. It is a support network, a liaison too, between the school and the parents.

It is one hell of a job though. You have to like driving to do it. You turn up, first day of term, fresh faced and beach tanned, with a spring in your step and a new necklace with a sharks tooth in it you bought from some hippy you probably could have snogged if you had wanted to. “Good morning Terry”, says the Principal gaily. “Good holidays? Great stuff. Back to work now eh. Here’s your patch for this term. It’s de-de-de de-dum”, checking the paperwork “oh! only 800 000 square kilometres this term. See you in nine months”. Driving from South Australia to the Northern Territory, 2000 kilometres, the final 500 along a corrugated dirt track to a cattle station, to say hello and how’s about you to a kid, then in the morning off again, to another property to do the same. The Home Tutor is on the road 40 weeks of the year.



It is a remarkable resource, and one, that is again, as far as I know anyway, confined to Australia alone. That kids can learn like this, that being remote and cut off needn’t limit your education, is a wonderful resource to have available.

Now quickly, to see who has been paying attention: who can tell me who Bid O’Sullivan is?



Mount Isa School of the Air allows children in the more remote areas of the outback to gain an education (for more information visit School of the Air online).