Tim Gray :

Over fifteen years or so I’ve seen at best just one or two Aboriginal kids passing their TEE [Tertiary Entrance] each year, which obviously isn’t the greatest strike rate. But at the same time, I know lots of kids do have the ability. So I’ve seen Follow the Dream as an opportunity to really boost the numbers of kids who are aspiring to excel academically. Not all of them will go to university, but by getting higher marks they’ll still be value-adding to their qualification for whatever they do.

The consistency that’s required of kids, in terms of attendance and keeping up with work, is one thing we’re always concentrating on. I know it’s all about rigour, and I believe in that, but students are really punished very quickly if there’s any sort of drop-off for a week or so, which can occur for a lot of reasons. They can get behind extremely quickly.

Now for a variety of reasons, some of the students are living in environments where it’s really challenging to establish that consistency and maintain it over two years. So I suppose my biggest hurdle is to try to make sure that they can be consistent. Academically, the kids who are doing TEE have oodles of potential and ability, but they have to maintain that consistency.

You’ve got part time work, which is just about a necessity for a lot of students. Then there’s sport, which is also part of being a healthy person, and that takes place here in the Kimberley mostly during the four months of cool weather. And if you’re good at sport you go on sporting camps too. So time can be squeezed. Sometimes it’s my job to negotiate on behalf of kids with people running sports.

Then of course the obligations of family are incredibly important here. I am certainly mindful of the fact that I can suggest things to families about attendance and so on, but there is a limit there.

So if, for whatever reason, a kid falls behind we basically look to see how quickly we can help them catch up. I try to get them to come to the after hours program, every day of the week and ideally in that situation they’ll be able to catch up. We also have some pretty understanding teachers, which is fantastic in the sense that at times if we need a full day with a student we can negotiate that. Of course, that can’t be at the expense of getting behind in another subject. The key is flexibility in how and when the work is done, not whether it is done.