‘Growing Our Own’ A two-way approach to teacher preparation for NT Catholic Schools.

Professor Alison ElliottHead – School of Education

Charles Darwin University

Brenda Keenan

Deputy Director – Teaching and Learning

Catholic Education Northern Territory

“I’m Principal now, but I’m looking behind me…. and nobody is coming to take my place….. I won’t be here forever, but who is here when I go? There is no one coming, no young ones. We are all getting old now, and if we don’t do something, this will be a Muruntawi (white) school”

(Indigenous Principal, Catholic Education NT, 2008)

Snapshot of the Northern Territory

Australia’s Northern Territory is one of the most culturally diverse parts of the nation. More than 100 nationalities are represented in the Territory’s population.

• SBS Radio broadcasts programs in 68 languages throughout the N.T.

• At the time of European settlement there were approximately 500 dialects spoken by the Indigenous Australian population. These dialects made up about 250 distinct languages. Ongoing colonisation and globalisation across the Australian continent has resulted in the loss of many languages. Approximately 50 Indigenous languages remain.

Population• Over the past two decades our Indigenous population in remote communities

has grown by approximately 40%.

• Remote Indigenous communities are growing rapidly and simply do not have the same range, level and quality of public funded infrastructure and services that are provided in towns of similar size elsewhere in Australia.

• Population of NT = 212,551 (ABS 2006)• 1.0% of Australian population (what a unique, complex and wonderful 1%

we are)• Median Age = 30.9• % of Indigenous = 31.6%

• With a population of 212,000 the Northern Territory is the most youthful in Australia, and has the largest proportion less than 15 years of age and the smallest proportion aged 65 years and over. The median Age is 30.9 years almost 6 years younger than the national median age.

Demographic and Geographic stats• The Territory has a unique demographic and geographic profile. Indigenous

Territorians comprise 30% of the population, most of whom live in remote communities spread across 1 346 200 square kilometres.

• Indigenous students represent 39% of the Territory Government student cohort. A high proportion of these students have English as a Second Language (ESL). 

• Just 15% of working-aged Indigenous Territorians had a mainstream job at the time of the 2004 census.

• 39.2% (approximately 18,000) of the Territory’s Indigenous population are school aged.

•6.4% of Tasmania’s Indigenous population are school aged•5.9% of Queensland’s Indigenous population are school aged•5.2% of Western Australia’s Indigenous population are school aged•3.9% of New South Wales Indigenous population are school aged•3.2% of South Australia’s Indigenous population are school aged•2.1% of the A.C.T’s Indigenous population are school aged•1.1% of Victoria’s Indigenous population are school aged

ABS 2006

Remote CommunitiesThe Territory has 641 discrete Aboriginal communities• 9 towns of 1,000 – 2,000 people• 50 communities with populations ranging from 200 – 999 people• 570 communities with populations of < 200 people.• 72% of the Territory’s Indigenous population live on Aboriginal land outside

major towns and certainly off the Stuart Highway• 51 homeland learning centres • 188 schools (152 public and 36 private schools) • 119 schools (72% of Indigenous students) are located outside of Alice Springs

and Darwin • Majority of our Indigenous in the NT do not have good access to mainstream

services

Characteristics of discrete Indigenous communities• Geographically dispersed, isolated and subject to seasonal conditions• Lacking in basic infrastructure and services• High comparative levels of socio-economic disadvantage• Limited capacity to engage in social and economic

development opportunities

Source: ABS 2006

Health

• 54% of remote communities do not have a local health clinic (ABS 2006)

• 99% of remote communities have no substance abuse service (ABS 2006)

• End stage renal disease (ESRD) in some NT regions up to 30 times the national average.

• Projected cost of treatment for ESRD in next 5 years is estimated to be $50 million.

• Underlying causes of chronic diseases is linked to poverty and disadvantage, poor living conditions, poor nutrition, low birth weight and infectious diseases.

• 2% have a women’s refuge or safe house; • 2% have single men’s housing • 4% have single women’s housing.

Health Cont…

• Nutrition and health are closely connected to educational achievement, school attendance and literacy skills. (DEST 2003 and ABS 2005)

• The health status of Australia’s Indigenous population is poor by world standards.

• More than twice as many Indigenous babies suffer low to extremely low birth-weight compared to non-Indigenous babies and Indigenous children are twice as likely to be hospitalized for infectious diseases. (SCRGSP, 2005)

• Upwards of 70% of Indigenous children in remote communities suffer from chronic Otitis Media, a serious middle ear disease that can cause permanent hearing loss and inhibit language and literacy development. (DET, WA 2006)

Snapshot of the Northern TerritoryHousing

Education

• 94% of remote communities do not have a preschool

• Lowest retention rate and participation of all jurisdictions across Australia

• In bush communities, English is a second, third or fourth language and is rarely spoken at home; while many in the Top End of the Territory might speak a Kriol, others would at best use an Aboriginal English.

• There is an enormous gap in the English literacy rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia. The gap is even wider for Indigenous people living in remote and isolated communities.

• The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students emerges early. Non-Indigenous students far out-perform Indigenous students in benchmark tests for reading, writing and numeracy in Year 3 and Year 5. By Year 7, the gap has widened, particularly for numeracy. (DEET NT 2006)

• Indigenous children living in isolated areas have even lower literacy rates. In the Northern Territory, only one in five children living in very remote Indigenous communities can read at the accepted minimum standard. By Year 7, just 15% achieved this benchmark, 47 percentage points behind their urban Indigenous peers and 74 percent less than non-Indigenous students. (DEET NT 2006)

Education Cont…

• Indigenous homes, particularly those in remote communities, have fewer books, computers and other educational resources than non-Indigenous homes. All of these factors are linked to children’s achievements at school and in the development of English literacy skills. (Bortoli and Cresswell, 2004)

• Absenteeism from school negatively affects students’ academic performance. Indigenous students miss around 26 days of school per year compared with 8 days for all students. Indigenous students living in remote and very remote locations are likely to miss an even greater number of school days. (Zubrick, Silburn, De Maio et al., 2006)

Snapshot of Catholic Education Northern Territory• 100 years of Catholic Education in the Northern Territory was celebrated in 2008

• Catholic schools in the Northern Territory enroll about 5000 students in fifteen schools -- Darwin - Alice Springs - Katherine - Nguiu (Bathurst Island) - Santa Teresa (vai Alice Springs) - Port Keats - Daly River

• 3 Homeland Centres – - Kuy (Port Keats)- Wurankuwu (Bathurst Island)- Wudikapildiyerr (Daly River)

• All Catholic urban primary schools have Early Learning Centre's • All Indigenous Catholic Community schools have Pre-schools

Darwin

Alice Springs

• Background to ‘Growing Our Own’• Context / rationale• Delivery model• Enrolment patterns• Two-way mentoring and academic work• Proposed course structure• Proposed initiative• Implementation phase• Consultation process• Enrolment details• Funding requirements• Implementation Issues

- Risk analysis

Growing Our Own - Implementation Plan

Background

• Aims• Recruitment• On-site, in-school classroom support• Capacity building / employment

opportunities• Quality workforce• Whole school approach• Whole school approaches that target all

aspects of early childhood literacy teaching are essential to the achievement of sustainable outcomes in education.

• Two-way model of teacher preparation• Charles Darwin University – Bachelor of Teaching

and Learning• Cultural Identity• Culturally responsive and pedagogically strong

Context

• Indigenous Catholic Community Schools – Northern Territory

• On-site mentoring• Dedicated CDU academic staff• School Based Coordinators• Project Officers

Delivery Model

• Candidates need to complete 320 credit points

• Unit content integrated with in-class teaching and learning

• Professional mentoring• Resource intensive, support

intensive, on-site study and practical intensive

Enrolment Patterns

• One day per week, on-site supervised academic work

• Professional experience placements• On campus intensive workshop

Two-way mentoring and academic work

• Whole school consultation process• Community consultations• Identification of potential students• Commitment to the teaching profession

Consultation Process

• The calibre of teacher may determine the number of student teachers in the initial intake as the strength of this success is heavily hinged on the quality team teaching approach, together with whole school support structures.

• The class teacher needs to be a good role model for the AT and this it is not always possible to ensure this with high teacher turnover.

• A high teacher turnover is envisaged, it is recommended that new teachers should have a minimum of one year experience before taking on the role as mentor teacher.

• Change of indigenous staff from now to next year, due a number of factors but predominantly family and cultural commitments.

• Adequate time for daily reflection on coursework and planning together for teaching the next day, is limited after school finishes because ATs leave school at 3p.m. In some cases this is when they are paid until, or ar 4 p.m. at the latest

Risk Analysis

• This model places a high demand on the classroom teacher’s skill, energy and time.

• The success of the this project is heavily reliant on a strong classroom teacher both for practical application as well as after school support.

• If the classroom teacher is indigenous, and has only a three-year Diploma of Teaching, several issues may arise: family supporting family – compromising their ability to critique; classroom teacher is mentoring a student to a higher qualification; two-way learning cannot occur.

• Experienced non-Indigenous teachers remarked on how tired they are, living and working in an ESL context and cross-cultural situation. Whilst professionally committed and finding it fulfilling, it is nevertheless exhausting, and they expressed concern for their health with an added responsibility of mentoring our students.

• Illness is common issue (e.g. one day the previous week, there had been 19 staff away from Wadeye school)

Risk Analysis Cont…

• Culture and customs and family commitments might mean that students have to miss a series of lectures.

• Possible pitfalls would be for an AT to be placed with a family member. It also raises the issue of the Two-Ways learning if both are Indigenous.

• In addition to staff turnover, if there is change of principal s/he might not be as supportive if the initiative, or prefer to set other priorities

• English literacy may be a challenge

• There may be a language barrier between student and lecturer

• It may take a while for new classroom teachers to relate the concepts of AL

• The program will be pressurised, fitting four years of study into two or three, requiring a level of commitment from the AT that they might struggle to provide, given the other constraints and demands in their lives.

Risk Analysis Cont…

Risk Analysis Cont…

• The course does require Western critique and reflection. A risk would be that the Two-ways processes might not be strong enough to explicitly develop these skills.

• Timetabling for after school planning may be compromised with the many after school meetings that are currently in place e.g. whole staff meetings, planning togethers, AL professional development

• Schools might prioritise other meetings/activities such as culture days or excursion/behaviour management demands, which would impact on the ATs ability to attend lecture days

• General timetabling at the class level or the school level might not prioritise the one day release of the AT which needs to be regular and non-negotiable

• ATs might find it difficult to see themselves as full-time students who are completing course work in the classroom, because they only have lecture contact one day a week. This might imply that they are first and foremost an AT who is studying part-time. It would be preferable if they would see themselves as full-time students who, in the completion of their AT role, are also meeting course requirements.

‘Growing Our Own’A two-way approach to teacher preparation for NT Catholic Schools.

Questions / Answers?

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Population Characteristics, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, 2004, page 35. • Australian Bureau of Statistics, The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, 2005, 2006.• Bortoli and Cresswell, Australia’s Indigenous Students in PISA 2000: Results from an International Study, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Research Monograph No. 59, August 2004, page 14. • Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), Final Report of the National Evaluation of National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, Dec 20• Department of Education and Training, Western Australia (DET WA) Conductive Hearing Loss and Aboriginal

Students, 2006. website http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/abled/apac/resources/pdf/conductive%20hearing%20loss.pdf • Mellor S and Corrigan M, The Case for Change, a review of contemporary research on Indigenous education outcomes, Australian Education Review, ACER, 2004, page 39 • Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, ‘Australian Directions in Indigenous Education 2005-2008’ Carlton South, 2006• Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision (SCRGSP), Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2005. Commonwealth of Australia, 2005 • Teaching Reading, Report and Recommendations, National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, Department of Education, Science and Training, Canberra, 2006. http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/reort.htm• Zubrick SR, Silburn SR, De Maio JA, Shepherd C, Griffin JA, Dalby RB, Mitrou FG, Lawrence DM, Hayward C, Pearson G, Milroy H, Milroy J, Cox A. The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (Volume 3): Improving the Educational Experiences of Aboriginal Children and Young People. • Perth: Curtin University of Technology and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, 2006,

• Source: The Fred Hollows Foundation Information Sheet (http://www.hollows.org.au/Assets/Files/Indigenous_Literacy.pdf (2008))

References

‘Growing Our Own’ A two-way approach to teacher preparation for NT Catholic Schools.

Professor Alison ElliottHead – School of Education

Charles Darwin University

Brenda Keenan

Deputy Director – Teaching and Learning

Catholic Education Northern Territory