Chrissie Parry:

I’m based at Lockridge Senior High School, but I work with four high schools in the Lockridge area. It’s a low-socio economic area and Lockridge Senior High has an Aboriginal population of about 10%, which is a significant number in the metropolitan area. There’s a certain amount of movement of Aboriginal kids between the schools, and in and out of the area.

As a coordinator I had to do a lot in the early days to build trust and to build relationships with the families and the two AIEOs [Aboriginal and Indigenous Education Officers]. It really took quite a long time, maybe the first six months. At that time I seemed to drink a lot of coffee! But having that term of lead-in time was vital.

The fact that kids were really prepared to give me a go early on I think can be put down to that early work with families and AIEOs. I always say that it doesn’t matter how many computers you put into a room, if the families don’t want to come and the kids don’t want to come, it doesn’t matter what you offer.

Initially I went and spoke to all my four schools and Aboriginal organisations and gatherings. The community people were a little bit reticent. I found that they were basically prepared to listen to what I had to say, but then were going to wait to see if I actually followed through with it. And I think sometimes the Aboriginal community gets tired of people promising all sorts of things. But as things started to happen the support was huge.

I talked to them about the fact that there were plenty of Aboriginal kids out there who were high achievers but that there had never been a situation where these kids had been supported with a special program. At the same time, there had been lots of programs for kids at risk. I also said that often kids who are really clever might be there in the classroom but still for some reason they’re not finishing school or getting to university. Perhaps they might just be sitting there quietly, not demanding attention. So I suggested that with some one-to-one attention, and a bit of a push, these kids could do incredible stuff.

This is how I work with my kids. They come in, and it’s a staggered start time because they come from different schools. There’s always afternoon tea but they are usually really keen to get to work. I tend to sit down each day and see what it is the kids need, and then assign them to tutors so they will get that one-on-one attention.

Each student does an IEP [Individual Education Plan] a couple of times a term, which we can go back and look at, depending on what it is that they are working on that day. The kids really take ownership. So they say what the work is, what their goal is, what it is they want to achieve, who’s going to help them, they set a timeframe to work within and they say how we’re going to celebrate it. I love that last bit! It came almost directly from pages of the What Works Workbook. The IEPs are working documents in manila folders and kids and tutors go to them when they need them.

We also have a cover sheet for individual pieces of work, and that’s based on What Works material too. So is our student profile, where we record information about the kids.