Canada's rote melody tests Aurukun

Academics in Canada  help map out the school week for the indigenous school students of Aurukun.

Alice Stintman

EVERY Tuesday, academics in Canada get on the phone and help map out the school week for the indigenous school students of Aurukun.

Veterans of the alternative teaching method Direct Instruction, they might not know the faces in the dusty campus on the western side of Cape York, but they can rattle off each of the 190 pupil's abilities when it comes to reading, writing and maths.

The telephone hook-up follows near-weekly tests -- conducted after every 10 classes in each discipline -- which are analysed to determine a student's progress under the method pioneered in inner-city American schools a decade ago.

Under the method described as energetic rote learning, pupils are taught in groups based on their abilities, not their age, and advance only as they pass each of the "mastery program" tests.

The trials in four communities are being run by the Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy in partnership with the Queensland government. Academy chief executive Danielle Toon said the method ensured "no child slips through the cracks".

"It is the ultimate in evidence-based decision-making around teaching," she said. "Pupils are tested every week. It might be maths, reading or language vocations and the results are summarised and sent off to Canada and Melbourne to the experts in DI. We then discuss the results with the teachers, and if a child is not getting a concept, we remedy it either by giving more time with the child in revision, or adapt the program; and if a pupil is doing well, we see that in the results, and they move on to the next level."

Through the campus, the melody of rote learning can be heard in the classrooms. "Get ready!" a teacher repeats, as she drills her students, calling out each of their names to read out words on the cards she flips through in a exercise that lasts about 20 minutes.

Ms Toon says the method is simple in that it focuses on the foundations of each concept, but extremely effective.

"It will take time; these pupils have had to catch up but this is the best of Western education and it will work," she said.