School of the Air is a generic term for correspondence schools catering for the

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

and early secondary

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

of children in remote and

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is now replaced by telephone and internet technology. In these areas, the school-age population is too small for a conventional school to be viable.

History

Circa 1929, Alfred Traeger invented the pedal radio which allowed people in remote areas to communicate over long distances, reducing their social isolation. One important use of the technology was to receive medical advice or summon a doctor by contacting the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Educator

Adelaide Miethke Adelaide Laetitia "Addie" Miethke, (8 June 1881 – 4 February 1962), was a South Australian educator and teacher who was pivotal in the formation of the School of the Air using the existing Royal Flying Doctor Service radio network. Parents ...

realised the same technology could be used for by teachers to deliver lessons to students in remote locations, leading to the establishment of School of the Air. The first School of the Air lessons were officially delivered from the Royal Flying Doctor Service base in

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

on 8 June 1951. The service celebrated its 50th jubilee on 9 May 2001, ahead of the real jubilee on 8 June. School classes were conducted via

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...

from 1951 until 2009, after which most schools switched to wireless internet technologies to deliver lessons that include live one-way video feeds and clear two-way audio. The service celebrated its 70th year on 8 June 2021.

Method

There are School of the Air programmes in all states except Tasmania. Each student has direct contact with a teacher in an inland town such as

Broken Hill Broken Hill is a city in the Far West (New South Wales), far west region of outback New South Wales, Australia. An inland mining city, it is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Hi ...

or Meekatharra. Each student typically spends one hour per day receiving group or individual lessons from the teacher, and the rest of the day working through the assigned materials with a parent, older sibling or a hired home-stay tutor. Originally the students received their course materials and returned their written work and projects to their hub centre using either the Royal Flying Doctor Service or

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

services. However the extension of

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

services into the

now enables more rapid review of each child's

homework Homework is a set of tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed at home. Common homework assignments may include required reading, a writing or typing project, Exercise (mathematics), math problems to be completed, informatio ...

. As the children are in isolated situations, the School of the Air is frequently their first chance of

socialisation In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and ...

with children outside their immediate family. This is supplemented by 3 or 4 annual gatherings where the children travel to the school to spend one week with their teacher and classmates. Studies have shown that such education is on par with, if not better than, standards set by the traditional methods of schooling. Each state of Australia that uses this means of education has well-documented checks and overviews of the service.

Honours

In 2009 as part of the

Q150 Q150 was the sesquicentenary (150th anniversary) of the Separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859. Separation established the Colony of Queensland which became the State of Queensland in 1901 as part of the Federation of Australia ...

celebrations, the School of the Air was announced as one of the

Q150 Icons The Queensland's Q150 Icons list of cultural icons was compiled as part of Q150 celebrations in 2009 by the Government of Queensland, Australia. It represented the people, places and events that were significant to Queensland Queensland ...

of Queensland for its role as an iconic "innovation and invention".

Schools of the Air

Schools of the Air operate from:

New South Wales

* Tibooburra

Northern Territory

Katherine Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...

Queensland

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

* Charleville *

Charters Towers Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits und ...

* Longreach *

Mount Isa Mount Isa ( ) is a city in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia. It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive mines in world history, based on co ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

South Australia

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

– now part of Open Access College

Victoria

* Thornbury

Western Australia

* Carnarvon *

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

Kimberley region The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy Desert, Great Sandy and Tanami Desert, Tanami deserts in t ...

, located in

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

* Meekatharra *

Port Hedland A port is a maritime law, maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inla ...

Lewis, Jo & Penfold, Chris & Port Hedland School of the Air (1989). In School of the Air: working together – apart : 1964–1989: a silver anniversary project. Port Hedland School of the Air, Port Hedland, W.A

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control School types Education in Australia 1951 establishments in Australia Educational institutions established in 1951 1951 introductions Australian outback Rural culture in Oceania