Abstract:
In the context of the policy priority to enhance engagement and retention in South Australia, attention is being given to the wide range of innovative programs emerging from schools in rural and remote areas. Contrasting with the state-wide, departmentally designed and funded interventions which are the subject of another paper in this symposium, these are school-based and school-designed. Targeting at risk students, they aim to design a relevant and engaging curricular response to the many complexities of these students' lives and the reality that the role of and identity as a 'student' is only one of many, and often the least meaningful to them. Some are highly case-specific, others are cohort-specific, such as pre-industry, young mums programs and those designed for indigenous young people. This paper will report the findings from an analysis of a selection of such school-based curricula interventions in order to explore the intersections with the analyses and findings of part-time study from the wider research project, focussing in particular on schools in rural and remote locations, including Coober Pedy Area School, Port Augusta Secondary School, Carlton School, Leigh Creek Area School and Edward John Eyre High School in Whyalla.