Beacon Hill is much smaller than either Emu Plains or Stockman’s Ridge. It is located approximately 70 kilometres from Stockman’s Ridge, and just under 200 kilometres from Emu Plains. Australian Bureau of Statistics census data records the population as 731 for 1996 and 394 for 2001, representing a significant decrease in population over the five year period. In 2001, Indigenous people made up 29per cent of the total population. The average individual taxable income for the financial year 1999/2000 is reported as $37, 127 (Department of Local Government and Regional Development, 2003). Over the course of the study, unemployment in the town ranged between 2per cent in March 2000 and 5.1per cent in March 1999.
There is one hotel in Beacon Hill, a couple of small shops, a one‐man police station, a petrol station and a general trading store which sells a range of goods from hardware to fresh produce. The staff at the school complained frequently about the cost of living in Beacon Hill. The prices at the general trading store seemed to be higher than they were either in Emu Plains or Stockman’s Ridge; the range of goods on offer seemed to be much more limited, and they seemed to run out of goods more quickly. As well as servicing the local gold mine, the town also promotes itself as a tourist destination, as several of the original old buildings in the town are of historical significance.
The heritage‐listed original school house housed two classrooms; one for the year two, three and four children, and one for the year five, six and seven children. This building also provided accommodation for a tiny staffroom, about the size of a large cupboard, and an equally cupboard‐sized reception area and Principal’s office. A demountable building to the side of the original schoolhouse provided a classroom for the kindergarten, pre‐primary
and year one children. At the time of the study, the school provided education for children from Kindergarten to year seven. A bus provided daily transport to Stockman’s Ridge for children in years eight to ten. When the study began, there were 69 children enrolled at the school, 71per cent of whom were Aboriginal. There were a total of four teaching staff, including the Principal, and five non‐teaching staff. The school was set in attractive, well‐tended gardens, next to a large recreation oval. A brick‐paved courtyard outside the original building served as an assembly area. Next to the building that housed the early years’ classroom, there was a small play area with climbing frames and other outside play equipment. The school received funding from the Priority Country areas Program, and school priorities for 1998 were listed as English and Mathematics. At that time, Beacon Hill Primary School had one Principal and three other teaching staff. The Principal did some teaching to provide upper school teachers with DOTT (Duties Other Than Teaching) time. In the first year of the study, the teacher who took the K/P/1 class was a new graduate, as was the Year 2/3/4 teacher. The teacher who taught the Year 5/6/7 class had been teaching at the school for two years. In term three of that year, the principal moved to Emu Plains, to take up the Acting Principal’s position there, and the Year 5/6/7 teacher became Acting Principal at Beacon Hill for the remainder of the year. At the same time, she continued to teach her Year 5/6/7 class, as enrolments had reduced significantly towards the end of the year, and the decline in student numbers had some impact on the staffing entitlements.
Jenny, the IK/P/1 teacher, indicated at this time that she thought she would ask for a transfer at the end of the year. However, half way into the second year of the study, Jenny was the only teacher who had been at the school the previous year. The Year 2/3/4 teacher from the previous year had not returned to the school, and had been replaced by the teacher who had previously been the ELAN teacher at Stockman’s Ridge. This teacher’s partner was employed in the mining industry, and she considered herself to be settled in the area. She was happy to commute the 140 or so kilometres each day from Stockman’s Ridge. The Principal, who had finished the previous year as the Acting Principal at Emu Plains, had been appointed there in the substantive position, and a new Principal had been appointed to Beacon Hill. This Principal had had considerable experience in an Aboriginal Community School. The Year 5/6/7 teacher started the year at Beacon Hill, but by the second term, she had followed her former Principal to Emu Plains.
This move left a vacancy that was filled for the remainder of the year by a series of teachers, with relatively long gaps in between, during which times the Principal took responsibility for the senior class. A number of teachers were appointed, but left again within two or three weeks. According to the other staff at the school, one teacher had arrived one day, and left the next. As a consequence of these discontinuities, the class had become progressively more unsettled and difficult to teach. In the middle of term three, a graduate teacher was appointed and remained until the end of the year. Unlike the rest of the teachers, she did not return the following year. When Ella, the new Principal, arrived from the Aboriginal Community School in the second year of the study, she expressed interest in the study, and said that she had “done some research of her own” into the school literacy acquisition of Aboriginal children. Ella said that her research indicated that after year five, Aboriginal children who are learning English as an additional language get most of their knowledge about English from reading, rather than from writing, television, videos, environmental print or instruction. This is consistent with the findings of Graves (2005). With this in mind, her aim was to get children reading fluently at an early age, and to develop in them an enjoyment for reading so that they would do more of it.
A whole‐school literacy program had been introduced to the school, using Fitzroy
Readers (Berryman & O’Carroll), a reading series that supports systematic phonics
instruction. Jenny had used these with the more capable year one children, but all children were using them once they reached Year two. The children had a kind of contract, which began with reading the book, then they cycled through a number of text‐related activities and finished with another reading of the text to the teacher, before moving on to the next book in the sequence. The older children were using the same routines with high interest, low ability novels. Ella reported that for the first time, three year seven Aboriginal children were taking novels home to read – and bringing them back again.
Ella was also developing a program of pre‐literacy and pre‐numeracy activities for the younger children. She had received some extra funding, and she had passed this on to one of the parents who was a teacher but now helped her husband run a station nearby. She had commissioned this parent to develop and make up durable sets of games to develop pre‐literacy and pre‐numeracy skills and concepts. Ella figured that if the resources were available, the teachers would use them.