Central school Australia Professional Tour 21st -

28th August 2015With the support of the Vanuatu Central School Council, PTA, Administration, Teachers, students & Bingara Central School, Gydwire Shire Council, New South Wales Australia

Principal handing teachers departure packageDeparture package includes airline tickets, visa, passports, flash drive, professional development program in Bingara school and a few pens for filling up departure cards.

Departure:- Bauerfield 21 August 2015 @ 4:00pm All met at the airport at 1:00pm for the check in and enjoyed the smooth flight to Brisbane.

Arrival: Brisbane21 August 2015 @ 7:00pm

Welcomed by Deputy Principal (Simone M ) & Teacher’s aid ( Kylie R) at the airport and travelled to Bingara by bus. It took 8 hours by bus. Arrived at Bingara at 4:00am Saturday morning.

Accommodation & transport Sponsors

All were well looked after with food supply, excellent accommodation and transportation. Food was sponsored by both schools.Transport was sponsored by Bingara School.Accommodation was sponsored by Gydwire Shire council.

Day 1 Saturday 22nd August 2015.Travelling teachers were accompanied by the principal of the school (Jenifer Bird) and teacher’s aid to do groceries shopping in Inverrel. Travelling teachers food was sponsored by both schools, Central School and Bingara school.

Day 2:- Sunday 23rd August 2015

All attended Bingara Anglican Church & were invited for morning tea by the church.The tour group was invited by teachers of Bingara for lunch at Bob’s farm.Sight seeing:- Top view & river

Day 3: Monday 24th August 2015Staff debrief: Principal welcomed and introduce the group to Bingara school staff.Central school staff were introduce to their host collegues.Teachers were allocated to their mentors and Nelson to the ground’s man of Bingara Central.The weeks announcements were made by the Principal, DP’s.Central school staff attended both Primary & Secondary in the morning.The whole day was spend on observing and picking up resources.Morning tea & lunch was provided by Bingara Central.

Staff attachment

All teachers from Central School Vanuatu were attached with class teachers of Bingara Central school for 4 days (Monday –Thursday).Teachers observed teachers teaching, team teach with their mentor and collect resources from teachers.Tour committee met with head of Bingara school to discuss possibility of sister school and will be followed up.

Day 4: Tuesday 25th August 2015The tour visited Rose Hill School. Rosehill is a primary school with 800 hundred students and has 4 streams beginning from K-6.This school has Special Needs so the group had the chance to observe the teacher at work, the classroom set up and discuss with teacher how learning and teaching programs were modified to suit the learner’s needs.Two rooms were allocated to special needs, one for learning difficulties & one for disabilities.Teachers observed that other facilities also support special needs like toilets, iPads etc..Teachers enter the special needs room in small groups as students may react to large group people.They spend a few hours at Bingara school before going to Rose Hill

Other visitation

Rose Hill school- a school with special education and this allows teachers to spend 4 hours in this school to see classrooms set up, programs and resources used for special needs.. (Tuesday)

Delungra school- a small school and this allows teachers to experience composite class teaching. (Thursday)

Old peoples home- teachers shows interest and wants to see and hear how old people are treated and cared for in a different culture. (Wednesday)

Day 5: Wednesday 26th August 2015The group spend the morning with their mentors. Everyone team teach/work to experience Australian school.During morning tea break, the group visited old people’s home.The group returned and spend the rest of the day with their mentors. Male staff helped teachers of Bingara school with sausage sizzle while the female staff assisted Bingara school staff with skipping rope competition.Staff of both school had a shared dinner together at the Living Classroom. All enjoyed the singing by the Vanuatu team.

Collection of resources

Teachers brought back a lot of experiences they have been exposed to. This is done through books, cards, photographs, soft copies and some were bought by the donut money that was raised by the students.Resources were bought for k-6, special needs, grounds man and two cameras were also bought.

Day 6: Thursday 27th August 2015The team attended a farewell assembly at Bingara school.Both schools exchanged giftsBy mid morning the group met the Gywdire council and performed a thankyou ceremony. This was to thank them for sponsoring our accommodation. A gift of a plaque, Vanuatu flag and a Tanna Coffee.The group also visited Delungra school. This is a very small school with 34 students and 2 teachers. Teachers experience multi-class teaching.The afternoon was spend on staff shopping.

Day 6: Friday 28th August 2015Early departure from Bingara for a long ride back to Brisbane and accompanied by McQu( secondary teacher and his daughter).Checked in and boarded Air Vanuatu, leave Brisbane 7:00pm and arrived Bauerfield at 11:00pm.

Ideas to implement

Effective group work in classrooms by having bean-shaped tables. One for each class including specials needs.

Reading recovery:- A learning support person to assist student with reading difficulties. Levels of target are year 1 – 3.Numeracy work that teachers have collected to assist them in their teaching.New pedagogy observed will be used in classrooms and all soft copies and hard copies of resources will be used in classrooms by teachers and stored in the schools server, shared resource folder and be shared with other teaching staff.School Cleaners are to begin work after school finishes so a good cleaning up is done inside of classrooms and less disturbing to students.

Additional Highlights

Thank you

The team wants to thank the Central school Vanuatu council members, PTA members, Principal and Bingara Central school for your tremendous support in making the trip a successful learning experience for the team.

We hope to work closely with you in future Staff professional development tours.

Thank you.