"They have to offer the top subjects": A rural school and its

curriculum.

Pamela Bartholomaeus

Deakin University

Introduction

In this paper I shall explore some issues surrounding curriculum

provided for students attending a secondary school in rural South

Australia. I am drawing on data collected at a rural secondary school

which is the site of my research concerned with rural education,

literacy and gender. Curriculum is an important element of the issue of

social justice for rural students, and one which needs to be addressed

when questioning what is occurring in rural schools which is leading to

rural students on average achieving poorer academic credentials than do

students attending metropolitan schools on average. Curriculum is an

aspect of education which needs to be considered when working towards

changing the role played by schools in reproducing social injustices

which occur in our society.

Curriculum provision for students in rural schools is problematic for

several reasons. This includes the range of the curriculum, and the

depth or number of different subjects within areas of the curriculum,

available to students. In an era of economic rationalism curriculum

provision is a problem, as it is not possible for schools with smaller

enrolments, and these schools are often situated in rural areas, to

reach the economies of scale achieved in the larger schools, which are

usually, though not necessarily, situated in the metropolitan areas.

But rural schools are in a position to deliver many other advantages to

their students (Dale, 1991).

Questions about curriculum in rural schools

Some issues relating to curriculum provision for rural students were

raised in May 1993 at the 'National Curriculum Implications for Rural

Communities' conference held in Northern Queensland (National

Curriculum Implications for Rural Communities, 1993). This conference

came about because of concerns of parents and educators from the rural

communities in northern Queensland with the National Curriculum which

was being introduced at the time. Participants at this conference

included parents and educators of the region, together with some

prominent educators and academics, and leaders of industries of

importance to this region. Recorded in the paper summarising the

conference was the following statement:

"'[The National Curriculum] has been imposed on all Australians, to fix

the national economy, but it has not addressed the needs of local

communities to enhance their own educational and economic needs."

(Gilmore, 1993, n.p.)

The nature of the National Curriculum was being questioned by

participants at this conference, with their main criticism being that

the National Curriculum had been formulated as a vocationally driven

curriculum devised to enable Australia to become more economically

efficient in a global market place, but that it had been prepared in

the industrialised south, well away from the region of the conference,

which is rural in orientation. One question from the conference:

"is the National Curriculum going to enhance the rural contribution to

the National economy; or is the National Curriculum going to add to the

'brain drain' of students away from rural areas to the industrialised

south-east?" (Gilmore, 1993, n.p.)

This question could rephrased: 'How would the National Curriculum

enhance the ability of the rural communities of the nation to operate a

diverse range of rural industries more efficiently, and more

effectively in the world economy, for the benefit of rural communities

and the nation which they enrich? This is an important question given

that rural communities wish to continue to thrive in order to enrich

their participants, and to continue the vital and substantial

contribution they presently make to the wealth of Australia (1).

Some students at rural schools, and their parents, have additional

goals for the rural education of younger members of rural communities.

Within almost, if not every, rural community, there is a group of

parents who want their children to receive an education that will

enable those who do not wish to remain in the rural sector to be fitted

for lives in metropolitan Australia and able to interact and compete

with urban Australians on an equal basis. That is, they do not wish

students from rural secondary schools to be disadvantaged by a

curriculum which is not equal that available in many metropolitan

educational institutions. The conference asked in its conclusion:

"Will the National Curriculum provide our children in rural areas with

the widest possible range of choices from which to choose a life-style;

and will it address the needs of local economies and industry to

develop the technical and managerial techniques necessary to continue

to support the National economy in the way we always have?"

(Gilmore, 1993,

n.p.)

Therefore the curriculum of rural secondary schools needs to suit the

needs of those who will remain in rural communities for all or most of

their lives, and at the same time also benefit those who wish to leave

their rural communities, for what ever reasons, so they will have

viable post-school options. Yet at the same time the curriculum

available to rural students was seen as needing to avoid attributing

status to selected students and subjects in such a way that the best

students would be attracted (or 'drained') away from their rural

communities. Rural secondary schools which are to provide valuable

experiences and credentials for all sectors of their school populations

need to be able to provide a wide range of curriculum options.

Often the definition of rural, and all that pertains to rural, is

discussed in terms of deficits (Gilmore, 1993; Redman, 1991;

Partington, 1989). This includes rural education, where some parents

resent the education available in rural schools for their students, as

they believe it is limiting. If rural students are stereotyped, they

are generally seen as being practically oriented, and not academic

(Henry, 1989). Mary Henry points out that this stereotyping is

discriminatory, and summarises the problem this way:

"It is a blatant denial of education's raison d'etre' to presume lower

intelligence in any child or group of children, without attempting to

devise appropriate strategies to teach that audience. This is not to

suggest 'appropriate' means 'rural' (in the sense of farming for boys

and domesticity for girls) but 'appropriate' in that teachers would

taken into account the experiences of the children they are teaching

and use that to inspire them to achieve their academic potential. It is

not academic chauvinism or ethnocentricity to abhor the practice of

dismissing country children as non-intellectual, but a very real

concern that many of these students are missing out on a sound

education, in any age when more than ever high standards of literacy,

numeracy and other skills are required."

(Henry, 1989, p. 380)

The issue of attitudes towards students, beliefs about student

abilities and their aspirations, and that ideas about these in relation

to rural students may be the basis for discriminatory practices, is an

important one to consider.

Introducing the research site and two students

Data for this research has been collected at Gleesonville High School

(2), located in a rural community in South Australia. Students come

from the main town, and from the surrounding small towns and

agricultural areas, including an area up to about forty kilometers from

Gleesonville. The population of the town is approximately two and half

thousand, and the surrounding district's population is almost as large.

The enrolment at GHS at the start of 1995 was 347 students, including

45 year 11 students and 53 year 12 students. There were 33 teaching

staff at the school. The town is approximately 130 kilometers from

Adelaide. There is a range of agricultural industries represented in

the area, and some secondary industries.

Lower numbers of students make necessary a restricted curriculum

offering for students in smaller schools such as GHS (McKenzie et al.,

1996). Using a simple measure of curriculum provision, the coverage of

the main areas of the curriculum available at the school, Gleesonville

High School offers subjects at each year level which cover all areas of

the National Curriculum, with the exception of a Language Other Than

English (LOTE) for senior secondary students (3). The number of

subjects within each curriculum area in rural schools is likely to be

more limited, as a result of school size. Students are also likely to

have reduced access to particular subjects, a result of smaller schools

being able to offer any particular subject once, a problem for

individual students where several classes are timetabled at the same

time and choices need to be made between the subjects. Access for

students is greater where a given subject is able to be offered more

than once (McKenzie et al., 1996)

Issues for senior secondary students at Gleesonville High School

include the range of subjects offered, the type of assessment offered

for a given subject, and the teaching mode available. At year 12 some

subjects offered by the school are publicly examined, some are school

assessed, and a few are publicly assessed (4). This is difficult as

students seek subjects with the type of assessment they require or wish

to attempt, and the school has chosen to not combine classes of the

same subject but different forms of assessment. For students choosing

SACE Stage 1 subjects there is also the issue of whether the subject

will be subsequently offered at Stage 2. Some subjects are not offered

at all, while others are only offered as PES courses. The students who

made the comment I have used for the title of this paper felt

disadvantaged because of the range of subjects that were not offered by

their school, home economics for example, and by the necessity of

studying German by Open Access.

Let me introduce you to Wendy and Cathy. Wendy and Cathy were two

students who were attending Gleesonville High School in 1995 as year 11

students, and continued there as year 12 students in 1996. It was

Wendy's comment which has given me the title for this paper. I

interviewed these girls together during one lunch break towards the end

of 1995. It was a joint interview as Wendy had expressed a preference

for this situation. The girls' fathers are both skilled tradesmen, and

one girl's mother is a trained nurse who works part-time at a local

hospital. These two girls had hopes for their futures, and dreams of

achieving modest academic success, although they harboured no ideas of

stunning the world with their scholastic brilliance. They expected to

need to work at school to achieve their aims, which they saw as modest

and reasonable. They both said they wanted to become involved in child

care or nannying, but not kindergarten teaching.

During their interview with me Wendy and Cathy called into question a

number of aspects of school life at GHS which they viewed critically

for a variety of reasons. One of the areas they were critical of was

the curriculum offered. They felt they came from a less valued, less

prestigious and less powerful group of students within the school.

Wendy and Cathy were frustrated that the school was not providing them

with the type of curriculum they wanted, while they believed that

efforts were being made to provide for other groups of students in

their year level. Instead they were having to choose subjects which

were not the ones that they would have preferred to be able to choose.

In early 1997 I found that neither of these girls had been successful

either in completing their SACE, which is now considered in South

Australia to be the basic educational credential which should be

achieved by students before they leave school. I shall return later to

these two girls and their comments, as I examine some of the curriculum

issues facing GHS.

Analysis

Andrew Sturman (Sturman, 1989), proposes that teachers' curriculum

decisions are made within a range of spaces or frames, which each

restricts their freedoms in particular ways. He suggests that four

frames can be used to analyse the curriculum decisions apparent in

secondary schools: the system, the school, the community and the

individual (Sturman, 1989; McKenzie et al., 1996). I shall use these

frames as a means of critically considering the curriculum of GHS, and

looking at what is happening for Wendy and Cathy.

1. The System

The system, and the body charged with the management of curriculum and

assessment for senior secondary students in South Australia, SSABSA,

each has requirements of the school and the curricula which it offers.

The system of which GHS is a part, DETE (5), requires all of its

schools to cover each of the eight areas of learning adopted by the

Australian Council of Education. In order to meet these requirements

schools have spent considerable amounts of time having teachers mapping

their curriculum to ensure that their students' learning is adequately

covering the eight areas; The Arts, English, Health and Physical

Education, Mathematics, Science, Studies of Science and Environment,

and Technology. The requirements of this pattern determine, to a large

extent, the nature of the junior secondary curriculum in secondary

schools, and this is the case at GHS.

The senior secondary curriculum is determined by the pattern required

to meet the requirements of the South Australian Certificate of

Education (SACE). The SACE is intended to take at least two years to

complete, with year 11 designated Stage 1, and year 12 as Stage 2.

There are a number of requirements which must be met for students to

qualify for the SACE. I shall give a brief outline of these

requirements. At Stage 1 students are required to take two units (that

is semester units) of English, at least one unit of Maths, one unit of

Australian Studies, 2 units from the Arts/Humanities/Social/Cultural

group of subjects, and a further unit from the

Mathematics/Science/Technology subjects for a total of eight semester

units. An additional four units of the student's own choice also need

to be selected, to give students a total of 12 semester units (6). An

additional requirement, usually met during Stage 1 is the Writing-Based

Literacy Assessment, where students are required to submit a folio of

four pieces of writing from specified subject areas. Stage 2 students

are required to take at least 2 semester units in sequence of a

language-rich subject, at least 2 semester units in sequence of a

qualitative or experimental subject, and at least two semester units in

sequence of a subject of their free choice. Students are able to choose

an additional 4 semester units, and these can be Stage 1 or Stage 2

courses. An additional determinant of the semester units chosen at

Stage 2, for some students, are the entry requirements of tertiary

institutions, and the specific requirements for entry into particular

tertiary courses.

The required curriculum patterns for SACE, and the tertiary entry

requirements, place restrictions on students in the subjects they are

able to choose to study, and on the school in the ways that it is

decided what is to be offered to its students. These requirements can

be particularly difficult for smaller schools where there is not the

opportunity to offer most subjects more than once. For example, if a

compulsory requirement, such as Australian Studies, which all Stage 1

students must take, is offered at the same time on the timetable as

another subject, the student is not faced with a choice, but has to

follow the requirements of the pattern. This is particularly

disappointing for students where study at Stage 1 in a subject is a

prerequisite for study at Stage 2.

The system influences the school's curriculum offering in an additional

way. It is the system which appoints teachers to the schools, and it is

the teachers who to some extent determine what the school is able to

offer to the students by way of elective subjects. When I was

discussing problems offering curriculum in the school one subject

coordinator explained:

"You often get subjects also picked up because teachers like it. And a

teacher comes into a school, settles here for two or three years, likes

... what's an example, enterprise ed, or a technology subject, or a

home ec subject, TRAC,... really pushes it, gets it going, and then

goes. Because you have got teacher interest, and that teacher goes, and

you have got raised student awareness, often you suddenly find yourself

in a bit of a hole ..."

Another example of such a subject is dance, which attracted many

students at GHS for a few years, with the school regularly reaching the

finals of the Rock Eisteddfod in SA, and being the winner one year.

Dance continued to be offered for a short time after the teacher

transferred to another school, but it is no longer offered as an

elective subject at the school.

2. The School

School based decisions relating to curriculum include the ways in which

the school timetable is organised, and the subjects which are

compulsory or which are electives. Other school based decisions relate

to the content of the subjects offered, the books selected as texts,

instructional methods, ways in which staff are deployed to facilitate

the teaching, homework policies, extracurricula activities, methods of

class formation, and the nature of prerequisites for study at higher

year levels in the school. Decisions can be made at the school level by

the principal, school management team, the school's curriculum

committee, school council, by faculty coordinators, or by staff as a

whole (Sturman 1989).

In common with most secondary schools the majority of decisions about

curriculum are made by the school principal and the school's management

team (Sturman, 1989; McKenzie, 1996) with important curriculum

decisions and major changes being discussed and passed by the school's

curriculum committee. This committee consists of the school principal,

the deputy principal, faculty coordinators, and two parent

representatives appointed by the school council. Meetings of this

committee are part of the regular schedule of meetings timetabled so

that all relevant staff do not have clashing commitments, and usually

occur fortnightly. Discussion of important issues is also able to occur

at regular staff meetings to keep all staff informed of possible

changes and important debates, and to seek some consensus for change

from the staff. Other decisions, particularly those relating to faculty

concerns are made by the faculty coordinators, and can be discussed at

faculty level meetings. Staff concerns, including those related to

curriculum, are able to be raised at faculty meetings, or placed on the

agenda for staff meetings.

Parents are able to voice concerns including those about curriculum

directly to the school principal, or through representatives on the

school council, but otherwise school council has little influence over

curriculum issues in the school. Occasionally parent input is sought

about a particular issue, for example reporting of assessment to

parents, when an invitation to send a submission or expression of

opinion is invited through the school newsletter. Usually such an

invitation attracts a very small response.

At GHS in 1995 and 1996 the school timetable involved seven lessons per

day for four days, with eight lessons on Wednesdays. The junior school

timetable had seven lines, while the senior school's had six lines (7).

The six line timetable for the senior school was a new policy

introduced 1995, and had been adopted to allow more lesson time for the

senior students, and eliminate a line of free lessons or study periods.

The year 11 students therefore had no free lessons, as they were

required to study a minimum of twelve semester units during Stage 1.

However, teachers of Stage 1 classes were able to designate a lesson

per week where their students were free to do work of their own choice

in the subject, or to choose not to do so if the class had fallen

behind in the teaching program. Teachers commented favourably on the

greatly reduced need to supervise the study periods for senior

students, which had been quite difficult to maintain in previous years,

as times for serious silent study, with all students present on time,

or their activities elsewhere accounted for. One result of this change

however was greater difficulty building into the timetable subject

choice for students. The possibility of students taking extra Stage 1

units was also removed. With two different line systems working in the

school there was a problem with some teachers having clashes between

junior and senior school classes. In such cases teachers needed to

choose which class they would usually teach, and a permanent

replacement was appointed for the other class. There can be questions

asked about the value of allowing students to have very few lessons in

some subject areas, but to continue them through out the school year.

An example is agriculture where students often grow vegetables and

study the care of animals. To confine study to one semester removes the

opportunity for students to experience most of the cycle of the year.

Year 8 students were required to study a set course, 'to provide a

broad educational experience.' They studied English, mathematics,

science, and society and environment for the full year, and art,

German, home economics, music, physical education and technology

studies each for a semester. Year 9 students were required to study two

semesters of English, mathematics, science, and society and

environment, and for one semester, computing/keyboarding, and physical

education, with seven of these units taken each semester. Year 9

students were also required to choose an additional four units,

including at least one semester from art, music and drama, and one unit

from German, technology studies, home economics, and extension PE (one

semester only).

The compulsory requirements for year 10 were two semesters of English,

mathematics, and society and environment, and one unit of science.

Students were also required to select another seven semesters,

including at least one from art, performance, drama and music, at least

one from keyboarding, computing and technology studies, and any from

German, extension maths, science B, physical science, geography,

history, physical education, home economics and agricultural studies.

The curriculum requirements for both years 9 and 10 were accompanied by

a note reminding students that they were not guaranteed that they would

be able to study all the electives they had chosen, with possible

withdrawal of an option due to there being too many students choosing a

particular option, staffing constraints, or two or more subjects being

programmed at the same time. An additional constraint not mentioned was

too few students choosing an option. The German and music classes were

taught combined with their respective year 9 classes. Satisfactory

completion of extension maths and science B classes were prerequisites

for study at Stage 1 of maths 1 and 2, and physics and chemistry. An

additional option for year 10 students was the 'independent research

lessons' (IRL) (8), where students had the opportunity to submit plans

for their research or work program. This work was to occupy the student

for a term in place of one of the elective subjects.

3. Community

Although there is limited opportunity for parent and community input

into the school's curriculum at GHS, and parents do not often take up

opportunities to express opinions when offered, the school can still be

greatly influenced by parent and student opinion. Decisions are also

influenced by subject selections of the students. Schools which are

striving to maintain enrolment levels are quite sensitive to student

movement. At GHS curriculum decisions made in 1994 included withdrawal

of a range of year 12 classes to be offered the next year, including

physics, chemistry, and maths 2, music and agriculture, due to a

projected staffing reduction for 1995. When this decision led to a

number of potential year 12 students being withdrawn from the school, a

policy was formulated about future subject offerings for senior school

students, called the 'curriculum guarantee'. Although the formal

channels available to parents and the community for input into

curriculum at the school are not often used, the school proved in this

situation to be quite sensitive to parent attitudes.

There were some important reasons for the curriculum changes for year

12 which were decided during 1994. Many smaller secondary schools need

to subsidise the senior school curriculum offered by creating fewer and

larger classes in the junior secondary years (McKenzie et al., 1996).

In 1994 GHS was experiencing reducing enrolments, and these reductions

were projected to continue in 1995, and thus the school was faced with

the reality of reduced staffing for 1995. This made necessary a

reduction in the subjects offered for senior students as classes in the

junior school were already quite large (9).

In 1994 when year 11 students and their parents were informed of the

subjects which were to be offered, the greatest concern was expressed

about the absence of classes for students planning to study maths 2,

physics and chemistry. Stage 2 classes in music and German were also

not offered. Another subject to be discontinued was agriculture, where

GHS was one of the few schools outside the metropolitan area to offer

this PES subject. The school had chosen to discontinue the smallest of

the classes formed for Stage 2 students, but some of these classes were

also the subjects chosen by the majority of the most academically

successful students, and also the subjects required for some of the

tertiary courses leading to the professions, and for the science

tertiary courses. Some students planning to study these subjects did

not wish to be dependent on Open Access as the study mode. These

students transferred to other schools, and staff at GHS felt that many

of the friends of these students then decided that they too wished to

transfer to metropolitan schools.

This school's 'curriculum guarantee' was formulated and published as a

means of making clear to the school and its community what courses the

school would definitely be offering to senior school students, and how

these classes would be offered. Quoting from the 'Course Offerings

1996' handbook issued to all prospective students for 1996 (10):

"CURRICULUM GUARANTEE

It is important that all parents are aware that the following Year 12

subjects will be offered face to face. We will also guarantee to offer

face to face the appropriate Year 11 subjects that provide pathways to

these Year 12 subjects. Our numbers in the Junior School are increasing

and in the next few years the school's curriculum offerings should

expand.

PES Subjects

English Studies

Geography

Australian History

Mathematics 1 and 2

Physics

Chemistry

Biology

German

SAS Subjects

English

Physical Education

Drama

Biology

Business Maths

Technology Studies

Art

Information Processing

Information Technology"

The school had responded to some of the concerns of the parents,

students and the community.

The solution that was arrived at by the school was not an easy one.

There were numerous discussions amongst teachers about the difficulties

of deciding whether to emphasise catering for the best students of the

school, students who the school naturally wished to retain, both for

the prestige of the school, but also for the benefits these students

bestowed through their leadership and contributions to student life,

and for the models they provided for the younger students. At the same

time the teachers felt that there was an injustice in the school

catering to needs of one group at the expense of another, and a larger,

group of students who did not intend attending tertiary education, and

did not have the academic background to contemplate the PES courses

which were being offered. These students would benefit from some of the

large range of more practically oriented SAS courses which could not be

offered while the guarantee took so many of the school's resources.

One teacher when being interviewed made some interesting comments on

the school's curriculum guarantee in response to a question about

student resistance. This teacher believed that some students were

reverting to resistance at school as the curriculum guarantee forced

them to take PES courses which did not meet their needs. The PES

courses were guaranteed, and the school was unable to offer the range

of SAS courses which it would otherwise have been able to. The school

was unable to offer both PES and SAS biology and history courses for

example. Yet this curriculum guarantee was very favourably received by

parents. One school leader questioned who the parents were who were

positive about the curriculum guarantee, suggesting that some of the

parents who were in favour were also the parents who were planning to

send their children 'away' for years 11 and 12, that is either to a

private school, or to a large metropolitan secondary school. Several

staff members, when being interviewed, suggested that the most pressing

issue at the school in 1996 was the 'curriculum guarantee', and that it

was an issue which needed to be addressed as soon as possible. It

appeared that there was recognition that the school had responded to

community opinion, and become locked into a curriculum offering which

was not sustainable, nor necessarily appropriate for a substantial

group of students.

During the time of the interviews the subject selection process for the

next year was held. The school was closed for the day, and all students

and their parents were asked to make appointments to meet with a panel

of two teachers to consider the student's subject selection for the

next year. GHS, in common with many rural schools offers a larger range

of subjects, but has to eventually form classes for a smaller selection

of these subjects, with the selection being based on the best possible

fit between majority student choices, and time tabling limitations

(McKenzie et al., 1996). The counselling process involved considering

how well students were performing in the subjects they had studied

during the year, the subjects they wished to study the next year, along

with consideration of how well they could be expected to perform in

those subjects, the career aspirations of the student, and which

subjects needed to be studied to keep appropriate pathways open. All of

these considerations then needed to be fitted into the curriculum

patterns required by the SACE. There were two teachers present for most

interviews, to allow better discussion and to enable checking of

knowledge of curriculum and students and ideas between staff for

students going into years 11 and 12, or with a view to future subject

selections for SACE with younger students.

The counselling day was the beginning of the process of formation of

classes for the next year and drawing up of the new timetable, as the

year level coordinators then spent many hours ensuring that the

decisions made during the interviews were realistic, that the classes

which could be formed on the basis of these subject selections would be

viable in size, and that students had not chosen subjects which

ultimately would not be offered or would need to be timetabled for the

same time. Thus the negotiation of the next year's courses for some

students was ongoing for a number of weeks after the counselling day.

The choices faced by some students were complex, with some students

needing to revise subject selections as the process continued. This

situation can be contrasted with that of the large metropolitan school

my sons now attend, where students select the subjects they wish to

study, check the choices against the career they are aiming for, obtain

parent and then obtain counsellor signatures to end the process. As one

year level coordinator at GHS pointed out, his school needs to have a

student-centred approach to subject counselling and timetabling. He

explained:

"...our numbers here make that sort of operation here rather critical.

... I guess schools either set the curriculum, or the students do. It

can't be in between, and we tend to let the students. Then we get it

almost ready, then we bring the other issues in, like staffing and

facilities, and stuff like that."

The individual

This frame is concerned with the attitudes and beliefs of the teachers

in the school about curriculum. These attitudes and beliefs influence

the ways in which teachers structure their lessons, pace the work

expected of the students, and the types of discussion they encourage or

direct in the class. Teachers also discussed some of their beliefs

about their students during interviews, and in informal discussions in

the staffroom.

Two English teachers talked about having to provide many references for

students, saying that they do not have the base of prior knowledge to

help them to understand texts. The comment was made that in the past it

was often possible to rely on at least one student in the class to

explain something, now it is necessary to provide many details to

assist with the reading of texts. This was seen as a generational

change, probably as a result of television, and the fact that many

students do not read as widely today as they used to. It was suggested

that there was a big middle ground amongst the students, who were

relatively easy to challenge. One of these teachers commented:

"I love it when they say, 'Oh, this is hard.'. I think, 'Yes! Like, I

am going to give you something you already know how to do?' ... And

when I say things like, 'Look, I know this is difficult, and that's why

we will be doing this, this, and this, and this is the end point.' And

I model it myself. That's, I think, that's really important."

This teacher also suggested that more of the students, that is a larger

proportion than had been experienced in other rural schools, seemed to

be removed from academic pursuits. Added to this observation was one

that the students who came from working class families in the town were

less appreciative of education, and of what teachers were prepared to

do for them, than had been the case at a large high school in a region

city where that teacher had previously taught.

Despite these opinions about the students, teachers were more positive

about the general characteristics of the student population as a whole,

than had been the case twenty years earlier. One teacher talked about

the ways in which the students at GHS did not any longer fulfil the old

stereotype of the rural students wanting to leave school as soon as

possible and go home to work on the farm, or in the family business.

All the teachers I spoke to agreed with the way one teacher

characterised the year 12 students:

"Good kids. They're always good kids. I've just finished at our school

assembly saying that they were good people, and they certainly are.

They all have their personalities and their characters."

One teacher mentioned the valuing amongst year 12 students of the more

academically successful students, a valuing which did not exist in the

lower year levels in the school. It was suggested that those students

who were also excelling at sport were able to take pride in all of

their achievements, and the transformation for the others was a gradual

process which the teachers continued to push all the way through

school. In a community where sporting ability is highly valued,

teachers were attempting to increase the valuing of other abilities.

One way this happens in the school is through the short story and

poetry writing competitions. The English coordinator attempts to spread

literacy activities through the year, as an attempt to "sort of keep

some sort of literature stuff in the forefront".

One characteristic of students from the school described by one

teacher, but not ascribed to GHS students in particular:

"... I don't see enough kids with the desire to know, simply because

they want to know, simply because it's there to know, that

inquisitiveness about the world. So I guess there's a lot of kids who

wait to have the information pumped into them, the essential

information of the world. And the zest for just learning for

knowledge's sake, is something that's certainly diminished. But I don't

think that's any more in this school than my previous experience in

country schools. But it does mean that they do tend to have a very

narrow focus. They do only know what is going on in their local areas,

despite the fact that a number of our texts and so on drag kids into

the rest of the world. But most of the connections that have to be made

the teacher has to pump in as part of the text."

That teacher added:

"I guess in my mind is this thought that everyone has got a standard

set of standard knowledge that ought to be there for their world view.

They ought to have a map of the world imprinted in their brain

somewhere, so when I say Ireland, they actually 'Oh yes a little bit to

the left of Britain', and it is amazing how many kids haven't got that.

And, ... I guess there's certain sets of facts, a lot of it for me is

the traditional European type history I suppose, but ah, there seems to

be a lack f this storehouse of facts in kids' heads."

The two English teachers spoke of providing students with model

answers, to give their students ideas of ways in which tasks could be

done.

The learning tasks set in the English and science classes were a result

of the teachers' beliefs about their students. There was much

discussion in one year 11 class leading up to an assignment on the

"Real Australian". This unit of work was one which would have appealed

to students, being one which was close to their lives, and a topic

which causes debate in a a highly urbanised nation where the rural is

upheld as the essential character of the country, and yet in is far

from the truth for many people. The students were exposed to a variety

of texts, a range of poetry and two videos shown in class. I observed

this teacher working hard to have the students recognising the

essential parts of one video which they had been viewing. The

discussion was lead by the teacher, in the initiate, response,

evaluation format (Luke, 1995). The questions and ideas were generated

by the teacher, and there was little encouragement or opportunity for

students to express, and try out their ideas. Some of the ideas which

were introduced in students' responses, but were not pursued in class

discussion, did reappear in the students' texts. But on the whole the

lessons observed were managed by the teacher who believed that the

students needed to be exposed to ideas, given the essential background

information, and have ways of talking about these ideas modelled for

them.

The teacher of the year 8 English class I observed had strong ideas

about what the students needed in the way of help with literacy. This

teacher, who was also the faculty co-ordinator wanted the students to

read more, and to have practice at oral reading, developing fluency in

oral reading. Thus there was a lesson scheduled each week for silent

reading, and other classes in the faculty were encouraged to include

this focus in their programs as well. As this teacher explained:

"I certainly promote it, that all classes should have regular reading

in school. It's not enough to simply have them borrow a book and take

it home, because any number of students won't read unless some time is

devoted to it here to show you value it. And that works quite well. We

are, well, the committee readers are always going to read anyway, but I

think we are holding on to some of the middle ground, when I think

society is moving away from regular reading."

The students, as a way of having the novel read by all students, read

aloud in class, with each of the students taking turns. The teacher had

a variety of techniques for assisting students to become more fluent

and confident in their reading, with emphasis on what was done well and

what needed improvement in their reading as they took their turn

reading around the class. During the silent reading lesson this teacher

also took time to listen to students reading to him privately, again

commenting on reading and encouraging the students in aspects of oral

reading where they needed to continue to improve. There was a similar

level of care, and personal attention to students who needed support

with written work in this teacher's classes. Another teacher of this

class also commented on what he perceived as the poor literacy

abilities of the students in the school. He too expected students to

read aloud to the class, and had devised techniques for ensuring that

all students saw selection as fair, and as something they all needed to

be able to do. This teacher used rather complex systems for selection

of the reader, and for student monitoring of what was read to find the

points which were being sought for the classroom task set.

Implications of the school's curriculum for Wendy and Cathy

Let us return to the story of Wendy and Cathy. During the interview I

asked them what they were planning to study in Year 12. Both Cathy and

Wendy were able to tell me what they were intending to study the next

year, but what they were unable to tell me was also interesting. So

what subjects had these two girls chosen? Wendy was planning to do art,

English, maths, business studies, and computing. Cathy was planning to

do art, maths, German, English and Australian history. Cathy was

continuing the study of German which she had been doing by Open Access

for Stage 1, again by Open Access the next year. They were both unsure

about what maths course they were doing:

"W: ...(continues) Ahm, we are doing business maths, aren't we?

C: No

W: They haven't, you see, we want to do applied maths again, but so

far, Mr X was saying the other day we'll being doing business maths.

C: I know, but I didn't quite get it.

W: Yeh, well, so there isn't enough numbers to do applied maths, so

we'll be going into business maths.

C: But it'll be applied and business maths, so like ...

W: Yeh, mixed in together.

C: Mixed."

The girls were rather vague beyond the fact that they were studying

maths the next year. Cathy was expressing the hope that possibly the

class would be a combined class, but this was not what happened. This

excerpt indicates something of the ongoing nature of the dialogue

between staff and students as the curriculum decisions were made. The

girls needed to do a quantitative experimental subject to meet the

requirements of the SACE pattern, and the maths was chosen to fulfil

that requirement. Wendy was quite unsure about the business course she

was going to do, unable to give it the proper name, and instead

resorting to:

"W: I'm doing that business bit. Whatever it's called. ... I've

forgotten what it is. I think it's business studies.'"

When I asked the girls if they thought that they had a fair chance to

do well and achieve at school, I received the non-committal "Maybe"

from Cathy. Wendy took over saying:

"W: What we always say is, if you turn out .. at this school at the

moment, we would turn into mathematicians...

C: Mathematician, scientists, and lawyers, because that's what's mainly

offered. Or English teachers. That's what it mainly is at the moment.

You see a whole lot of people are doing science at the moment, which is

biology, and physics and what ever."

These two girls were questioning the subjects being offered to them at

the school. Wendy indicated that she would have liked to study

agriculture, which she had been able to do as a year 10 student. She

would also have liked access to home economics. They indicated that

they were looking forward to being able to do art, although they had

been unable to do that as year 11 students, or had chosen not to take

this subject. Apart from these suggestions they were at a loss as to

what subjects they would prefer to be doing as they had little idea of

what was possible. As Cathy said:

"What would be better subjects? ... I don't know. That's all we've

been stuck with, so we don't really know any better subjects."

Where students have the knowledge of what is possible, and the

determination to pursue those ideas, they have more idea of how to go

about getting what they want. Again there is the point about the louder

voices being heard, and the quiet voices not being sought out.

The comments and the positions of these two girls about their subject

choices for the following year reveal a similar pattern to that

observed by Lyn Yates and Julie McLeod (Yates & McLeod, 1996) among the

subjects in their longitudinal research involving metropolitan and

rural students. They observed that the students from the rural

community were noticeably less knowledgeable about careers and related

educational requirements than were the urban students of similar social

class background. This experience seems common among rural students.

The most successful matriculation student in South Australia announced

in January 1997, a girl from a neighbouring farming community,

indicated that she was quite unaware of the requirements for entry into

medicine, and later had to reverse her announcement that she might

change her preferences for tertiary study to medicine instead of

nursing.

In a follow up interview in early 1997 Wendy and I discussed her

impressions of year 12 and a little of what she and Cathy had done

during the year. I discovered that neither of the girls had achieved

their goal of passing year 12 or achieved the SACE. To complete their

SACE the girls had needed to achieve 10 out of 20 for at least three of

subjects, out of five full year courses, or a combination of full year

and semester units. Wendy had experienced considerable problems with

both art and information technology. In art Cathy and Wendy had worked

under teacher direction, but largely on their own, while the teacher

took a year 11 art class. They had begun with still life drawing, and

apparently were very slow. Wendy explained that of the three sets of

practical work they were required to complete during the year, she only

managed to do two. Apparently Cathy had managed to complete the work to

much higher standard than Wendy, and had managed to pass the course.

There was a third year 12 art student, who was doing the PES course. He

is a talented artist, and worked a quite different schedule to the two

girls. The art teacher was in the position of having to manage three

year 12 students almost as an extra to her regular teaching load and

administrative duties, plus needing to assist a student who was finding

much of the practical work very difficult and time consuming. The girls

also did not comprehend the theory of art course requirements well:

"W: And then you also had to remember, ... well you didn't have to

remember, but she asked us a couple of time, what did, oh, I don't

know, but what did those guys do, and all that sort of stuff. And it

was sort of like 'We don't know!' We did the work, but we still don't

know.

P: You didn't understand it?

W: We didn't understand it really. We just copied it, words, and wrote

it down so it made sense. And we didn't understand what we were talking

about really."

Wendy had apparently failed to become literate in the theory of art

discourses, and had reverted to 'making do' techniques for producing

texts required during the year (Gee, 1990).

The conclusions to the 'National Curriculum Implications for Rural

Communities' conference of May 1993 included the recommendation that

'Curriculum choices be widened in rural areas, using technology, open

learning, networking etc' (National Curriculum Implications for Rural

Communties, 1993). Open Access was available for students who wished to

study a subject not offered at GHS, or perhaps a subject which was not

available to some students because of the nature of the timetable. GHS

does not use networking or electronic technologies to link with

corresponding classes in neighbouring secondary schools. This type of

cooperation exists between classes in some schools in the northern

areas, and for another group of schools in the Murray Mallee areas of

South Australia. Open Access was the only alternative for students to

access courses not offered at GHS. However there are two problems with

the Open Access option. Many local people view this option with

suspicion, and have strong reservations about the likely chances of

success for their students, particularly without the motivating

encouragement of a teacher meeting with students regularly, and the

interaction of classmates working on the same assignments. Another

problem for some students is realising the potential that Open Access

can hold for them. Although GHS as part of its curriculum guarantee

promised to provide in school support for students who were taking

subjects which were included in the guaranteed list of subjects, and

there was no such promise for students taking other subjects, it was

possible for students to select other subjects for study via this

medium.

Cathy was not successful in her attempt to complete Year 12 German

studying by Open Access. She withdrew sometime during term 2. It

appeared that she did not understand what was being expected of her in

the course, and felt that she had no one she could turn to for

assistance. Her original German teacher had transferred from the

school, and she had not established a working relationship with the

replacement teacher. Working unsuccessfully and in isolation she

dropped out. Although German was a subject guaranteed to be available

to students at the school, apparently adequate supervision and guidance

had not eventuated for Cathy.

It should be emphasised that there have been a number of students from

GHS who have very successfully studied using Open Access, one example

being photography for which four GHS students were enrolled in 1997.

This year there have been fourteen year 12 students from GHS studying

Stage 2 subjects by Open Access. The most successful student at Year 12

in the results released early in 1997, Neralie Rowan, a student at a

rural area school in a neighbouring area, had studied by Open Access,

completing a two semester course and two single semester courses. She

received scores of 20 for each of her subjects, including those studied

by Open Access. Neralie's success, reported in a local paper, included

the following comments:

She said distance education had been more difficult than face-to-face

lessons with a teacher.

"The distance education involved only one lesson a week by

telephone.'You have to make yourself do the work. You don't have a

teacher there pushing you [to] do it,' she said."

Neralie was highlighting several of the features of Open Access study

which are of concern to students and their parents. Many students at

GHS, and their parents, believe that many students are not sufficiently

motivated or academic enough to be successful in these courses without

school supervision.

Another difficulty with Open Access study is knowledge of what is

possible. Wendy did not study Open Access, despite having indicated an

interest in the first interview in studying home economics. Apparently

she only discovered late in the year that an other student, who had

transferred to GHS from a metropolitan private school at the start of

1996, had been doing this very option.

"But I never was offered. ... I asked for any other subjects, but they

didn't offer it though, they didn't say I could do it by Open Access,

and I didn't know what they could do through Open Access. Because if I

knew what they could do through Open Access I would have done Home

Economics. And I would have done some other subjects that I would like,

instead of subjects I didn't want."

Wendy sounds rather disappointed and frustrated here. Open Access study

presents another difficulty for schools. Students studying by Open

Access are not counted as full students in the school for that subject,

and thus if many students are using this option there can be a further

reduction in the staff appointed to the school. This is a disincentive

for schools to promote the option of study by Open Access.

One important fact to note about curriculum GHS is that it is never

seen as an easy issue. There was frequent discussion among staff about

many aspects of the curriculum, identifying problems, and talking about

possible solutions. These discussions looked at the practical aspects

of the school's curriculum, and at the underlying philosophical

questions. The most perplexing question seemed to be which group of

students should be the school's priority, those who were the academic

elite, or the those who did not fit this description, but had a

different set of needs. Some of the staff were pleased that they were

able to offer a process of counselling students into the next year's

subjects in a manner which was student centred, and accepted that there

was a considerable workload involved in the process. Although

considerable effort was made to inform students about curriculum

issues, course requirements, and prerequisites for careers, the

students still seemed poorly informed, as Wendy and Cathy were, when

they were questioned about courses they were taking, and the

possibilities available.

Some curriculum innovations and disappointments at GHS

An important introduction to the GHS curriculum in 1996 was the work

experience program TRAC. This was a new work education course, where

students were placed in retail businesses in the community to work for

a day a week for a number of weeks each semester. There were also some

other curriculum requirements these students needed to meet. During the

other four days of the week students caught up on lessons in other. In

its initial year some students who had considered work education a

possible course option veered away from a course which was new and

unknown, and opted for other courses instead.

The TRAC program required the establishment of a committee made up

largely of business people in the community who were willing to

participate in the program, and this committee liaised closely with the

school. After a successful initial year, the program was extensively

enlarged for 1997, with five surrounding secondary schools also

participating, and a larger range of placements offered. There are two

programs, hospitality and retail/office programs available to students,

each with specific curriculum requirements. Hospitality is available at

Stage 1 and retail/office is offered at Stages 1 and 2. This program

has involved a large cooperative venture in which GHS is involved with

neighbouring schools, and it is currently administered from GHS. The

concentration in the first year the course was offered on retail

positions, was intended to keep the program simple as it was very new

for all schools. However, this limited the range of experiences to

which students could be exposed, and did not include any positions

involving technology, nor did it link students with any industries

important to the district.

One person raised with me the question of the demise of agricultural

science which had disappeared from the senior school curriculum in 1995

as a result of the need to curtail the curriculum options for year 12

students. For five years GHS was one of very few schools, apart from

the agricultural high school located in Adelaide, to offer agriculture

as a PES course, thus counting as part of the requirements for entry

into many university courses. Apparently it was not just students from

farming families who took the course, although it was popular with such

students and particularly those intending to go into the family'

farming business. Another group of students also chose agriculture as

the science subject they wished to do, and often it was girls who

excelled in the course, and who were dux of the subject at the end of

year 12. It was felt that many students received much higher points

from this subject than they would from an alternative, and usually from

any other course they took, thus providing them with a good advantage

in their academic credentials. Thus agricultural science was an

important option for these students. What had been the advantages of

offering agricultural science as a PES course? Students in the school

were able to pick up an interest in junior school, perhaps choosing the

subject out of curiosity, deciding they liked it, and continuing with

it into senior school. The students were then well equipped to continue

with this study after secondary school if they wished, and the course

did provide a number of pathways into employment, training or further

education. It is estimated that in the five years the school offered

the course, twenty-seven students went on to study agriculture at a

tertiary level. No student had gone on to tertiary studies in

agriculture since the year 12 class was omitted from the subjects

offered (11). The demise of agriculture at year 12 has created a

difficult situation for this subject area in the school. Now, students

who wish to take this course at year 11 need to be advised to think

carefully, as there is the high probability of there being no class at

year 12 for them to continue. In 1996 seven students sought to do

agriculture in 1997 at Stage 1, but due to the small number the

students were counselled to transfer to other classes, and none of

these students have opted to do the course by Open Access.

One member of the school's administration team expressed concern that

the emphasis in the school is on having the students meet the SACE

pattern requirements, rather than working to build a course which fits

the individual students, their interests and their strengths and

weaknesses.

Some conclusions

Education is a social institution which ideally is concerned with the

care and nurturing of all individuals. However discussions about

curriculum and outcomes from education for individuals and their rural

communities are made difficult by the many frames which influence

curriculum. With so many influences on the curriculum of the school

there is little space or incentive for the school to consider how to

ask questions about building appropriate and adequate courses,

particularly for non-elite students.

Despite the student centred approach to curriculum and placement of

students into subjects at GHS, it is difficult for the school to meet

the needs of all its students adequately. Large classes in the junior

secondary years make it possible to increase the subjects offered to

senior school students, but these students still have access to fewer

subjects than would be ideal.

For a variety of reasons some subjects are seen as more important and

more prestigious than others, by tertiary institutions, students,

parents, the community, and by the school. Equally some students see

themselves as 'other' or 'lesser' than another group of students. There

is a stereotyping of students, which has unfortunate consequences for

many students.

To close, I would like to share a quotation to ponder as questions

about curriculum provision are considered, and concerns about outcomes

for students are at the forefront of thinking about education:

In a society in which dependence on successful schooling is practically

universal, wide differences in educational outcomes cannot be

tolerated. This is partly because individuals with the weakest results

will be continually vulnerable to economic and social change and will

be robbed of their individuality. But it is also because the education

system itself, having crystallized around the strengths of its

strongest users and become rigid and resistant to the needs of the

weakest and most vulnerable, becomes an object of institutional

protection and narrow social strategies in which care and nurturing of

all individuals is no longer the guiding value.

(Teese, McLean & Polesel

1993; p. 1)

Endnotes:

1 Gilmore's 'Conclusion and Summary' includes, as a precursor to the

question quoted above, the information that 80% of the nation's export

income comes from rural areas, with 45% of that being generated by the

6% of the population living north of the Tropic of Capricorn.

2 In this paper the names of all students and the name of their school

are fictitious.

3 The LOTE subject offered in the school is German. This subject was

offered to all year 8 students for one semester, and then as a full

year elective course for students in years 9 and 10, with these

students in a combined class. Students wishing to continue studying

German in the senior secondary years need to study by Open Access, ie

distance education.

4 PES - Publicly Examined Subject: SAS - School Assessed Subject; PAS -

Publicly Assessed Subject. A minimum of four out of five subjects is

required to be PES for university entrance at Adelaide University. For

entry to the University of South Australia five PES or PAS subjects are

required, with some prerequisites for specific courses. University of

South Australia diploma courses accept PES, PAS and two unit SAS

subjects for entry. There are restrictions on the possible combinations

of PES and PAS or SAS subjects. Only two semester length subjects are

allowed for entry to University of South Australia courses. 11 Entry

requirements for Flinders University are similar to those of the

University of South Australia.

5 The South Australian state education provider is now DETE, the

Department of Education, Training and Employment.

6 Twelve semester units is the basic requirement. Some students are

able to choose to study more units, as used to occur at GHS, and at

some schools an extra unit is timetabled for all students to enable

their students to experience some additional areas which are thought

important, such as Vocational Education, and study skills.

7 Many schools use line timetables, and each line is allocated an equal

amount of lesson time per week, or per the number of days taken for

each round of the timetable if it was a period other than a week.

8 IRL, to quote from the 'Course Offerings 1996' handbook, 'is a

program designed to extend Year 10 students with gifts or talents. The

programme allows students some time to carry out a detailed study in an

area where they have a strong interest. It gives them an opportunity to

develop their researching and organisational skills and puts a strong

emphasis on self reliance.' A few students each year put together

successful submissions, and find a teacher willing to supervise their

project.

9 The size of the year 8 classes was highlighted for me by the note in

my research journal about discussion with the teacher of the year 8

English teacher who talked to me before I began observations, about

where I would sit in the classroom. This detail needed to be negotiated

as the class was very large for the size of the classroom and the

amount of furniture provided. I noted, "We decided that for this class

the most appropriate positions for me [to sit] would be either in a

spare seat which was often positioned at the front of the class

opposite the teacher's desk, the alternative being to carry in a spare

chair from the corridor to position at the back of the room by the door

when the whole class had entered the room. I used each of these

positions at various times." In 1996 when observing a year 8 technical

studies class the teacher was finding safe supervision of the large

junior classes he was being asked to take extremely difficult,

particularly when the students were using power tools, and in a class

with at least one ADD student.

10 This form of the GHS Curriculum Guarantee was published 21/6/95.

11 This was true at the time of our conversation. Since then a student

who transferred to the school for years 11 and 12 has done so. This

student came originally from a community school (R-12) where the

agricultural science teacher worked with all primary level classes in

the school, as well as taking the secondary classes for agricultural

science.

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