Completing a teaching placement at a rural school Q&A
When I first started at UTS, I was fresh off the coat-tails of my gap year. I had been given the taste of travel and I wanted more. I spent a year working in a boarding school in West Sussex in England. While I was away, I got to travel Europe and I had the realisation that I hadn’t ever really made any effort to explore my own country. That thought became something of a mission for me once I settled back into life in Australia.
I picked a rural placement because I wanted to see what it would be like to work in a small school and push myself outside my comfort zone. I love seeing different schools and how they approach teaching and learning to expand my ideas of what I want to take into my future classrooms.
Are there scholarships available?
Unfortunately, by the time that I had decided to go on a rural placement, I had missed the window of opportunity to apply for the Teach.RURAL scholarships offered by the Department of Education, but they do offer amazing incentives to anyone who may be interested in applying.
What if I don’t want to commit to a permanent position in the country?
This whole journey started for me because I loved the idea of teaching in the country was terrified of the prospect of ending up being placed at a school in the country with no prior experience. That is why I asked the Placement office if I could do one of my Professional Experience blocks at a small school. I committed to 10 days just to see if I would like it before I then committed to my internship at the same school the next year because I enjoyed myself so much.
How did you pick a school?
I have some friends of the family that live in Orange who were kind enough to offer me accommodation should I need it if I decided to go there. I asked the Placement office if they had ever sent anyone to Orange, they had only sent some to a large school and that was not my intention, so I asked the Placement office for permission to email some Principals from the surrounding district if I could do my placement at their school. I emailed 5 schools and it was very frightening. Yet, every school replied to my email and they were very kind, I then had a look at the schools’ websites and read through some of their newsletters and information. I wanted to pick a school that I genuinely thought would be a place I’d like to work in the future and I was lucky enough that they were delighted to have me.
How did you get to and from Orange?
I have done many trips to and from Orange in various ways since my first placement there in August 2017. It is about a 3.5 hour drive through the Blue Mountains and Bathurst, which I have also done by coach in the evening through Australia Wide Coaches. There’s also the XPT train that takes closer to 5 hours and I would highly recommend bringing a book or downloading something to watch on your computer. It costs approximately $40 each way for both the train and the coach.
Where did you stay?
I have been extremely lucky in that my Principal and her family have been incredibly welcoming and have let me stay with them whilst I’ve been undertaking my placements. This may freak some people out however it has allowed me to properly see what it means to work in a small school, the day doesn’t end when the school bell does, I’ve been able to go to District PSSA meetings, meetings with Principals from other schools in the area and P&C meetings. It has opened my eyes up to all the extra things that teachers and in particular, teaching Principals do and given me a new respect for the profession I am entering into.
