See saw, up and down, in the sky and on the ground.
Welcome to the Charleville School of Distance Education.
We have prep to Year 10 students based all over southern Queensland.
I'm going to give you a great big air high five.
Some of our students are 400 kilometres from their nearest town.
The technology that's used now, we have a teleconference lesson with the children in their groups.
The teachers then go on to a web-based program that they can use with the children one-on-one or in groups.
The parents and/or their home tutor, are integral to the delivery.
We live on a sheep and cattle property, which is 55 000 acres
and it's 140 kilometres south of Charleville. The children have an on-air lesson every day for half an hour, which is fantastic.
They do Maths or English. They also get to speak to their friends which is the best part.
The School of Distance Education is very very portable and with a lot of our programs being recorded now
if a child has a computer, they can do their program at any time and any place.
So children who have the responsibility of helping with mustering, cattle or sheep-farming whatever their job is at home
they can actually fit their schooling in around those times so it's a very portable, very unique and individual program for children.
Charleville School of Distance Ed holds minischool twice a year so the children can come together
and participate in activities that they cannot do when they're on their own:
Group activities, problem-solving activities, sporting, team work and socialisation.
I'm surprised I'm getting wrapped in toilet paper, I'm really surprised.
The most rewarding part of distance education is the students who you are dealing with are generally very keen to be there.
Some of them are meeting for the first time. They might have heard their voice on their on-air lessons but this is the first time they see face to face.
I have a sister and when we wake up every morning we have to go feed all our animals because there's lots of them.
We live about five hours apart so we never really get to visit each other.
At the start we feet a bit shy.
Yeah, but then we don't leave each other, we just play and we do skipping at morning tea and the breaks and yeah we do all of that sort of stuff.
Seeing our teachers here is really great because you know you don't get to see them much and out where we are, there's like no teachers.
swimming
Yeah, swimming.
An important part of mini schools is swimming.
A lot of them live in areas where the waterholes or the dams are not safe for swimming so it's great that they can have clear water and a pool experience.
The other night we read this really funny book and we'd just sit there and read it together
and Boyd would laugh really hard at the really funny parts
and yeah we just talk and that sort of stuff.
It was Sunday night I think it was.
Yeah on Sunday night we talked for ages.
We're best friends.