This month you are in for a treat… a visit to Whalen Primary School outside Sydney, Australia! One of the greatest pleasures of retirement is the opportunity to travel during the school year, and I recently returned from an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand. For two weeks at the end of October we exchanged homes with Shirley Steel, a retired educator. When I told her I”d love to visit a school, she recommended Whalan, where she had served as principal for several years. The school year runs from January to December, so I was visiting in the middle of the final term.
Whalan Primary School serves 350-400 students, Preschool to Grade 6, in a large government housing area with high unemployment. Approximately 20% of the students are of Aboriginal heritage and 40% speak a language other than English at home; most walk to school. There’s a photo of each teacher at the school’s entrance, and photo signs at doorways saying, “Welcome! Our teacher’s name is… ” I felt right at home in classrooms full of books and posters and student work, with word walls and reminders of the school”s three rules displayed everywhere: “Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be a Learner.”
Principal Jo-Ann Lock gave me a lovely tour of the sprawling complex of classroom buildings. They have an extensive kitchen garden where students in grades 3-6 grow, harvest and learn to prepare different foods! It was Friday afternoon and most students were in the fields, playing sports, and eating lunch. One group of students was working on artwork for an end-of-year “Celebrations” theme. I enjoyed being involved with an “Ocean” theme at the Manning Elementary School, where I taught for many years and my 4th grade students did cross-grade research projects with first graders. If any of you have had positive experiences with school-wide themes, please share them via the BTU Union Paper… articles always welcome. We can inspire one another!
Each teacher at Whalan Primary School is responsible for six subjects (plus supervising lunch/recess time): Maths, English, Social Sciences, Science, Arts, and Physical Education. There are no “specialist” teachers and they get only a half hour break all day long, although they do have a weekly 2-hour block of release time for conferences, phone calls, grading papers, etc. This year”s academic focus is on reading and the entire staff read The Book Whisperer, about how to encourage a love of reading; perhaps some of you are familiar with it.
I enjoyed visiting Whalan and getting a glimpse into a school world both similar to and different from our own. As in the USA, Australian educators are concerned with budget cuts and a new national curriculum. What sustains us all is “the kids” “ working to make a difference in the lives of our students.
Amika Kemmler-Ernst, Ed.D.
amika45@comcast.net