Alice Springs School of The Air

Saturday September25th: Decided to walk as it looked only about twenty minutes away on the map. It took over an hour and I only had about 70 minutes there. I would have liked more. Last week I had the opportunity to visit The School of The Air in Alice Springs. It has a physical building with an assembly hall and two radio studios from which classes are broadcast/conducted.

It was established in 1951 when one of the governors of The Royal Flying Doctors thought that the idea of using the pedal radio to consult with patients should also work for the education of children in the remote outback. So she established The School of The Air which has evolved over time to fully adopt internet video conferencing through Interactive Distance Learning (IDL).

The school caters for an area as large as Central Europe, ten times the size of England. It is known as “The largest classroom in the world.” It is the only school in the world where you can move 1,500km and still attend the same school!

Before this the kids had to learn by correspondence only. Now as well as video lessons they get a home-school tutorage bag with books and assignments going one way and work to be corrected going the other. The school still makes extensive use of traditional distance education material. The mail room at the school resembles that of a small post office, moving thousands of items a week. They get daily lessons online and also meet up as a group about three times a year: once to go on Camp, once to have a sports day/NAPLAN and once for their Christmas concerts. The Government subsidise the petrol for these meetings but the parents have to pay for accommodation. The Gov also fund the school just the same as a regular primary school. Yet it costs three times as much thus they have to fundraise. Tours of the school are one of the main fundraising efforts. Just as well, as each pupil is provided with a computer, scanner, printer and satellite dish. (Costs about $15,000) Students reside on cattle stations, aboriginal communities, national parks and military bases. They all have to have a home tutor, sometimes a parent or sometimes a young person on a gap year or the like. These home tutors are trained and also visited a few time a year. The home visits are a very exciting occasion for the pupils as they get to show their teacher around and have some face-to-face contact. It only happens about once a year due to the long distances the teachers have to travel. There are about 13 pupils in each teacher’s ‘class’. Pupils with special needs and advanced learning needs are also catered for, as are preschool students. They cater for up to Grade Nine and after that the kids attend boarding school. The performance of the pupils, as assessed by NAPLAN, compares very favourably with other Australian pupils.