Around 200 regional SA schools have had enrolment drops of at least 10pc over five years
Country school leaders want funding to keep good staff when enrolments drop and for counselling for kids from financially struggling families. See enrolment trends for every SA school.
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READ BELOW: Adelaide schools with dwindling numbers
Country school leaders want funding to keep good staff when enrolments drop and for counselling for kids from financially struggling families, and more government help so families can stay in their communities instead of leaving to find work elsewhere.
The call comes as The Advertiser reveals around 200 South Australian schools suffered enrolment drops of at least 10 cent over the five years to 2018, the majority of them in regional areas.
Principals say schools must be better resourced because they are the often last bastion of community life and social support, once drought and population declines decimate sporting and cultural clubs.
SA Area Schools Leaders Association president Ray Marino said counsellors were needed because students felt the impact of families’ financial strain and the depression “that starts to set in across the community”.
“The students come to school with particular baggage and stress,” he said.
“When they see their parents struggling and counting out the five cent pieces, it starts to really impact on their learning, their wellbeing, their relationships.”
Mr Marino said a “special grant” system was needed to help country schools retain staff and maintain subject choices for students when enrolments dipped.
“When you lose numbers you lose resources and classes get small,” he said.
“If they’ve already got a staff member, then rather than lose that staff member, tide them over, especially if it looks like (enrolments) will improve.”
Mr Marino said small regional schools found it hard to attract specialists such as home economics and tech studies teachers, and subject co-ordinators.
But schools including his own, Cleve Area School, were retraining teachers to fill the gaps.
And schools were collaborating to deliver high school subjects online.
“Many more schools are being connected NBN-wise and the (Education) Department has really gone out of their way to get high level broadband and connectivity. For instance, in our school we have one teacher delivering specialist maths and one delivering tourism to other schools.
“They are the strategies we’ve been using to provide the breadth of senior schooling.”
Enrolments at Cleve have held up pretty well in recent years.
“The community here, up until the last couple of years, has had productive farming. The drought is starting to bite. So who knows what will happen in the coming years,” Mr Marino said.
But some suffered serious enrolment declines from 2013-18, including Leigh Creek, Quorn, East Murray and Coober Pedy area schools, and public high schools at Riverton, Gladstone, Waikerie and Bordertown.
Public primary schools at Cadell, Glossop, Kangarilla, Peterborough, Tantanoola, Robertstown, Rendelsham, Mount Burr, Truro and Kalangadoo had sharp drops, though small declines in raw student numbers can produce big percentage changes in small schools.
Of private schools, St Barbara’s Parish School at Roxby Downs had the largest drop.
Small Schools Association of SA president Sue Billett, principal of Morgan Primary School,
said schools were vital community hubs in places that lacked other services.
She said parent and grandparent involvement was strong in small schools but that participatory culture was always challenged when unemployment hit regional areas.
The association has previously backed the shift of Year 7 into secondary schools but warned it would come at a big cost to small schools because they would lose funding for teachers and resources.
The State Government is considering allow 46 regional public primary schools, that are at least 20km from the nearest high or area school, to keep offering Year 7 until 2024.
“The department’s very aware it could have a significant impact if it was done very suddenly in our communities,” Ms Billett said.
The department said small schools received above average per-student funding “in recognition of their challenging economies of scale”, and other extra funding for rural schools to access services such as counselling “may also apply”.
“The fall in public school enrolments in some regions is in line with the general population decline in those areas,” a spokesman said.
“About 75 per cent of students in remote and regional South Australia attend a public school, so it’s not surprising the public sector is seeing the most significant impact from regional population decline.
“This isn’t the trend across the system as a whole, where the proportion of students attending a public school is growing and is forecast to grow at an even faster pace in the future.”
Adelaide schools with dwindling numbers
Shrinking enrolments is not just an issue for country schools.
About 80 of the 200-odd schools to suffer falls in students numbers of 10 per cent or more from 2013-18 are in or near metro Adelaide.
The largest decline was at public school Paradise Primary, where enrolment almost halved from 205 to 108 over that period.
It was followed by Orthodox school St George College at Mile End, where numbers went from 560 to 298 over five years.
Both schools were contacted for comment yesterday.
Next on the list are St Michael’s Lutheran at Hahndorf and Our Lady of the Visitation School at Taperoo.
Then comes the well-documented case of Loreto College at Marryatville, where enrolment fell from 834 to 515 from 2013-18. A decade ago it had nearly 1000 students.
When the Catholic girls’ school opened a new science centre in March, principal Nicole Archard said there were advantages to being small, such as fortnightly reviews of every student’s academic and personal progress.
“We are happy being who and what we are, a small school,” she said, adding Loreto was financially viable with current student numbers.
St Francis of Assisi School at Newton, St Mary Magdalene’s School at Elizabeth Grove, St Anthony’s School at Edwardstown, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College at Enfield, and St Bernadette’s School at St Marys, are other Adelaide Catholic schools among the top 50 fastest- shrinking schools in the state.
In June, the Sunday Mail reported that statewide, the Catholic system had lost 3000 students over four years, while the public and independent sectors collectively added 10,000.
Catholic Education SA attributed its loss of students to “economic circumstances” but expected the trend to reverse from this year onwards.
Public schools with large enrolment falls include Hamilton Secondary College at Mitchell Park, as well as Para Vista, Darlington and Seaton Park primary schools, Birdwood High and Springbank Secondary College.
Formerly Pasadena High, Springbank survived a proposal to merge with Unley High. Behind St Michael’s at Hahndorf, Our Saviour Lutheran School Happy Valley had the worst proportional enrolment drop for the Lutheran sector in Adelaide.