School School 03

From

New South Wales, Australia

Functions

Government Primary School and Primary School

School 03 is a two room, government school in rural New South Wales with approximately 30 enrolments, two full time teachers and one who works part time. Fieldworkers visited the school during a very cold week in winter 2009. At that time there was one Aboriginal child enrolled.

The co-ed student body is split into two age-based classrooms; one for children in Kindergarten to Year 2, the other for Years 3 - 6. Many people connected to the school value what they describe as 'its small, family atmosphere.' Because the school is small a number of play activities observed included more than one year level in the game.

Because the number of adults available for yard supervision is also small, it seems that children were very rigorously policed. Nor were they able to range widely across the yard during playtime. Children who were not in the direct line of vision of the attendant adult were told to shift their play to where the majority of the children were located. During the period of fieldwork, the bulk of observations were made on the playground equipment, where supervision was guaranteed.