Life in an Outback Schoolroom !

As we have only a few teaching days left with the boys I realise that I have never really explained what life in an Outback Schoolroom involves !
I have already moved from the station to town as we have had two sports carnival days in Longreach, and my last week will be spent with the boys at Windorah at a sports camp.
In the last 6 weeks the boys and I have spent 12 days in the station schoolroom. We have attended school events and sports camps in various towns in the local area, travelling anything from 300kms to 700kms. With great planning and two boys who have worked very well we have completed 10 weeks work in 7 weeks.  I must tell you the curriculum for Distance Ed students is very content heavy with an over abundance of written answers to be returned to their teachers so I am very proud of the boys this term.

Life in our Outback Schoolroom !

The school day begins for me when I open the door that separates the two sections of the building and pass through from our house to the schoolroom. How wonderful I hear you say ... No driving, no traffic, no rugging up for the cold !

 The first duty is to switch on the computer and login our Yr5 boy to The Learning Place of the Queensland DET to access Collaborate which is the forum for online learning. This enables us to access his forum with the least amount of difficulty. Usually if we try to do this closer to his lesson time at 8.30am we have difficulties as everyone is attempting to logon. It seems to fold under the pressure. 

The boys arrive at 8am, when they are on time ! They walk, run or ride their bikes the huge distance of maybe 30metres from their back door to the schoolroom. 

No school uniforms out here, just whatever they feel like wearing ! Usually shorts, a t-shirt and rarely
any shoes. Their feet must be as tough as nails ... as they run around the station with bare feet.
Sometimes they'll even arrive in dress-ups!

During the week students in Yrs3-6 have English, Maths and Reading/comprehension on air. Each lesson is one hour. Yrs 5 and 6 also have a language lesson, Japanese or French. Prep/K to 2 have one on air lesson a day, either English or Maths and a reading session.

At 8.30 each day there is an on air English lesson for Yr5. Collaborate has already been opened on the computer and we wait for their teacher to place their lessons up on the screen. At this point all that is left to do is phone in to the DET, dial the teacher's lesson code, put our headphones on and wait for the conference style lesson to begin. Once begun the students and teacher converse on air and use a main room for lessons, and breakout rooms for individual work and feedback. The teacher uses a video option to be able to be seen during the lesson.

While our Yr5 boy is on air I have the opportunity to teach a lesson to the younger one. This will be
the opposite one, English or Maths, to that taught on air that day. 

At 9.30 the younger boy has his on air lesson so we quickly log out from the first lesson and hang up the phone and begin the login process for the computer and phone again !  The only difference this time is that he uses the video option on the screen. In this way he is able to see and be seen by his teacher and classmates. Once again I work with the older one.

At 10.30 it is smoko down at the kitchen with Michelle, their mum, and George, my husband, for half an hour. While the boys rush down to be on time I log out and log the new lesson for 11am in and then rush down for smoko myself.

After smoko the boys alternate lesson times for the next two hours until it's time for lunch. With only one more on air for our Yr 5 boy after lunch the busiest part of our day is done. After lunch we have quiet reading, some spelling and then time to do anything we like until school finishes at 3.30, though often I'm still chasing them out at 4pm. We may do some art, craft, sport, listen to a book read by me, play some board or card games ... whatever we are all in the mood to do !

Quiet reading

Indoor tennis in the heat of summer !

Art !

So where does the curriculum come from ?

The boys schoolwork arrives in mail bags either by mail plane or we pick them up in the SODE (school of distance ed) mailroom when we go to Longreach for school events. We are supplied with curriculum books that include a student's unit workbook/guide, a home tutors unit guide, a unit disc
 and a pack of resource books. These are included for english, maths, science, history, geography,
 pdhpe, art and manual arts. They are also available through the online Learning Place. The teachers supply a yearly overview and Work Rate Calendars for each 5 week unit.
Each day the boys take photos of their work in each area with the iPad and email them to their teachers to use as a record and for feedback.

Time with Teachers and School Friends !
The boys have opportunities to catch up with their teachers and friends during the year at different events. Each term is begun with a one day cluster meet. We attend a cluster day at Windorah about 4 hours away, this involves staying in town the night before.
Each year also has a mini school, held at Longreach for 3-5 days. We stay at Longreach SODE's Quarters which are a communal dormitory style accommodation on the school site. This enables the boys to spend time with their friends outside of school time.
Other events include Home Tutor Workshop week, sports and swimming carnival days, a trip away for Yrs 5 and 6, and Graduation.

Playing educational apps on the iPad on the long 8 hr drives to Longreach. 

Sport at Longreach SODE 

Extra Curricular
The boys and I have also attended camps for swimming, a gymnastics and arts week, and this week a sports week. These are all held in smaller towns in conjunction with the state and/or catholic schools. This has been a wonderful opportunity to become part of the community for a week and to make new friends in Eromanga,
Quilpie and Windorah for these.

The life of a Home Tutor/govie is never boring !!

By Lynne

Music in the Mulga

Music in the Mulga is held each year in May at Wandilla Station, about 15 kms out of Eulo in south west Queensland. It is a weekend where artists mix with the audience, beginning with a Celebrity Cook Off.

Each celebrity is asked to cook a meal outdoors in a camp oven, bbq or over the fire for Friday night dinner. Meals are then sold and the money goes to Angel Flight charity. George took on the task of cooking a Beef Curry with a damper. Both were special recipes, the beef curry from our very good friend Kim, the cook at Durham last year. The damper was from another good friend Norm, our indigenous stockman at Durham who George has become great mates with.

Each celebrity / muso then had to spruik their meals to gain a ticket which was used to count their sales. Each guest paid $20 and received 4 tickets to purchase their meals. Both 

musos and guests enjoyed themselves.

The headliners were Simply Bushed, Tanya Kernagan, Adam Brand, Jarred Porter, Graham Rogers to name a few.

George had a great time across the weekend ! He was booked to do a performance on the Saturday morning and help with organising the walk ups. But it was a relaxed weekend and many of the artists joined in during the walk up times as individuals or in groups. After the main show at night all the artists would get together around the campfire to jam. Those of the audience who stayed awake into the small hours were treated to a wonderful mix of music from the artists. 

It's safe to say George had a ball playing and singing with them all.

George on stage on Saturday

George was honoured to be asked by Graham Rodgers to back him in the night shows ! It seems the two of them have modern ballads and songwriting in common.  Looks like there will be a few more of these gigs in Qld next year.

As I said it was a fairly laid back Music Festival, day and night, with lots of opprtunities for Musos and audience to to mingle. Here are some photos of the late afternoon shows. Unfortunately my night ahots did not come out too well.

We will definitely have the Music in The Mulga festival on our list for next year !

By Lynne

Celebrating a Birthday in an Outback Schoolroom !

 Well ... things are definitely different in an outback schoolroom !

Especially when it's the Home Tutor/govies birthday !

The day began with phone calls from my girls and grandchildren ! 

Then the boys arrived with their mum, our boss, with handmade cards and birthday wishes.

 In the middle of the first session George, my husband, appeared and he and the boys stopped to give me wrapped chocolate bars !

 Smoko was scones. 

Then on heading down to lunch I discovered our boss, the boys' mum, and the boys and George all waiting at the 4wd ... we were going on a picnic on the banks of The Cooper, a spot we had not been to before. 

What a great surprise !

We had billy tea, cornbeef sandwiches, carrot cake birthday cake, fruit and the boys cooked marshmallows over the fire.

 An hour and a half later we headed back into the schoolroom for a somewhat relaxed last hour. 

Dinner ... Our cook served a meal she knew I liked, shepherds pie and a profitjers,with chocolate cream, tower and more birthday wishes. 

I ended the night reading all our friends and family's birthday wishes ! 

Definitely a wonderfully different way to spend my birthday ! !

By Lynne

A Night Under the Stars

I Was sitting looking at the moons reflection in the water when I realised that the Lunar eclipse was taking place.

It was so dark that the exposure times were fast and the moon tended to be overexposed.  This is the start of the eclipse

I got the exposure right and this brought out the red in the moon. The full cover was very short ... 6 minutes before the glow returned.

This was after midnight and the end started here.

The night was cloudy and the effect of the eclipse was quite spooky.  I kept waiting for the Hooly Goulies to show up.

 By George

Road Trafffic ... Station Style ! !

In the last 4 months we have driven 12 000 kms in our own ute and a few more thousand in the company ute while driving the boys back and forth to school events and ourselves to a few personal ones. In that time we have passed and overtaken quite a few oversize trucks and road trains, that is vehicles up to 2 decks high and 3 trailers long, some of which can be up to 50 metres long. 

While taking the boys to mini school in Longreach a few weeks ago we were slowed down behind a convoy of 5 oversize trucks and their 3 escort vehicles on a development road that was barely single lane wide with some very narrow bridges. At one point one of the trucks directly behind us had difficulty with a bridge and had to reverse, re-align himself and scrape his way across the top of the safety rails on the bridge. It took us an hour to be directed safely around each vehicle at individual moments in time, slowing down our journey. The drivers were very professional and wonderful to speak with and listen to on the UHF.  At times we could hear their frustration with impatient oncoming vehicles even though we could hear them explaining that there was 5 oversize trucks, 3 support vehicles and a 'conventional vehicle somewhere in the mix,' namely us ! 

It is best for travellers to remember that all road trains and trucks have right of way on single lane development roads in outback regions.

A truck approaching us from behind, we decide to let him overtake us as we are on the unfamiliar River Road heading north off the station to Eromanga.

 

Passing two triple double deckers loaded with cattle.

The station is a very busy place as it harbours two industries, cattle production and mining !

So as well as the normal cattle trucks we have road graders which belong to both the station ,the mines and the local council. Each are charged with managing their own roads on the station.

                                       

New gas pipelines that stretch for miles being laid on the Bellare Gas Centre side of the property.

                                     

Another Road Train passing us on the station's River Road heading north to Eromanga as we return from a few days away at Longreach School of Distance Education.

I know our grandson's would love to be here to see all these wonderful oversize trucks in action ! 😀

By Lynne