News Archive

The Faculty of Education has a long tradition  of  working  with  rural  schools and supporting developments in rural education. Three recent events are evidence of this continuing support: The Midwest  Rural Education  Field Trip, and new Narembeen and Goldfields trips. The Midwest Rural Education Field trip has provided secondary pre-service teachers with opportunities to experience teaching and living in rural  communities for over 13 years. This year, two primary teachers joined the experience.

The staff at Mount Magnet District High School, Mullewa District High School, John Willcock College, Geraldton Grammar, Morrawa District High School and Morawa Agricultural College provided the pre-service teachers with a generous welcome to their schools  and communities.  The students participated in community barbeques, cultural experiences and classroom interaction.

These longstanding partnerships will be expanded in 2013 with the delivery of a Master of Teaching Unit delivered to pre- service teachers on site at Morowa DHS.

The  success  of  this  field  trip  model has informed developments in two projects around attraction and retention of  teachers to  rural  areas funded  by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council    [ALTC].   Dr   Elaine    Sharplin has contributed to the production of curriculum materials to enhance the preparation of pre-service teachers, most recently  in the resource package entitled Teaching in Remote Australian Schools: Enhancing Pre-service teacher education and previously through the Renewing Rural and Regional Teacher Education Curriculum .  Both projects advocate the use of field trip models to provide pre-service teachers with rural experiences.

An outcome of these projects has been the  inclusion   of  two   additional   field trips for GSE pre-service teachers: the Goldfields   experience,  offered  within the Western Australian Combined Universities Training Schools Projects (WACUTS)  for  pre-service  teachers in all phases of learning, and the other to Narembeen organised by Associate Professor Robert Faulkner and Associate Professor Christine Howitt took pre- service teachers enrolled in the Master’s of Teaching Early Childhood and Primary.