New South Wales
Country Areas Program
Projects That Really Make a Difference!

Project: Journey into Education
Type: Batemans Bay District Initiative
Coordinator/s: Colin Gould, Garrick Hale, Liz Sweaney
Participating Schools: All schools in the Batemans Bay CAP District
Attributes addressed: Self, Communication, Self-Directed Learning, Global Awareness and Responsibility

Overview:
Data gathered from across the Batemans Bay CAP schools highlighted the limited professional development opportunities for educators in small rural communities, outside of those opportunities provided by their District Education Office. The information collated also indicated that distance and size of communities impact strongly in small rural communities in the following ways

• by limiting the diversity of input, particularly as most training and development is undertaken with colleagues from within the same small school community
• the economic viability of bringing major presenters to rural communities. Most national and international educational presenters tend to focus on metropolitan or large urban communities, and finally
• the "locked culture" of some small isolated communities. i.e. the limited knowledge within isolated teaching communities of the diverse range of speakers presenting information on current and future educational developments. Often this information fails to reach small rural schools and their communities.

With these issues as a focus, the Batemans Bay CAP schools decided to address the situation by providing a major professional development package which utilised the expertise and skills of quality educational presenters, both national and international, to all teaching and ancillary staff within their district.

Ongoing support was also provided in the form of follow-up development opportunities for groups of schools who had been stimulated by the input presentations, and who were seeking greater depth of knowledge or skills, in particular areas.

This initiative sought to challenge educational thinking of educationalist from a range of small rural and isolated communities whilst providing a platform for the establishment of networks in a range of educationally diverse fields.

Implementation
The initiative had two components

a. A Symposium, aptly known as Journey into Education, offering a renowned keynote speaker, a session which all participants accessed. This session was followed by symposium participants selecting, prior to the day, a four hour workshop from a range of educational themes. Workshops were presented by well known experts in selected areas. A selection of twenty three workshops were offered, with the areas addressed nominated by schools and determined by consensus.

b.Follow-up workshops. Following the symposium groups of schools had a time frame in which to submit requests for ongoing input. This could involve, further workshops, research projects, intra school visits etc.

The most economically viable organisation for Component A: the symposium, involved:

• utilising a government schools' Development Day, with approval from both DET and Catholic Education.
• selection of a central location which could cater for 650 educators and community members. Although a non-CAP community Bega was nominated as the most suitable location as CAP communities were to small to cater for the large numbers intending to attend.
• Bega RSL auditorium was utilised for the key note address, presented by Dr Peter Ellyard. Although a tight fit for the 650 participants, it was the largest venue in the town.
• the five non-CAP schools within Bega were invited to participate in the symposium. In return these schools provided morning tea, lunch and rooms for the workshops with no cost incurred for their training and development.
• presenters from Melbourne and Sydney were flown in by charter allowing the organisers flexibility over arrival and departure times and saving considerably on accommodation and delays for presenters who had tight itineraries.

Follow -up Component

This has been widely accessed primarily for a range of collaborative workshops. However, one group of schools have accessed the funds to participate in a research project.

General Comment

Although the initial concept concerned some people who felt the budget would draw from initiatives which targeted students only, evaluations following the symposium indicated that 78% of respondents felt this was the most viable form of presenting quality training & development and use of District CAP funds. Schools have commented that for each teacher upskilled an even greater number of children benefit.