School School 06

From

South Australia, Australia

Functions

Government Primary School and Primary School

Fieldworkers visited a South Australian school in a suburban fringe district in winter 2008. School 06 is a government, co-ed (K - Year 7) school with a population of 400 children taught by twenty-three teachers (fifteen classroom teachers). The student body is quite homogenous with most children coming from Anglo-Celtic, middle to high income socioeconomic backgrounds. The school is acknowledged as a high-achieving academic school, catering to a predominantly middle-class demographic.

The school is located on one campus and has extensive and well-kept grounds with most of the space being available for play. The playground is ringed along the perimeter (marked by a wire mesh fence) by old poplars, and has many pepper trees, eucalypts and olive trees. Flowering vegetation is often used by children in their play. There are a range of general rules to guide play, although the principal's view is that most rules only apply when a need arises. Some teaches suggest that the size of the playground and variety of play spaces is one reason why conflict in the school grounds is so rare.