Narembeen schools are at the top of WA public education

Its focus on prioritising specialist teachers, exemplary student behaviour, small classes and a happy community, which has seen it win one of WA's three top education awards for 2022 - for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Primary.

For principal Chris Arnold it is a proud but hard-won recognition of what is being achieved by the small school, which has just 16 teachers and this year 111 primary and 32 high school students.

That includes 19 students in years 7-8 and 13 in years 9-10.

The town is relatively remote - about 300 kilometres east of Perth and a 45-minute drive from the larger regional centre of Merredin and two hours' to Narrogin.

As a district school, Narembeen DHS caters for children in kindergarten up to year 10 - with students attending from town and from surrounding farming districts.

It also has students who come in each day on four bus routes, including from Kondinin, which only offers a primary school.

Ms Arnold had been a teacher in WA for 44 years and principal in Narembeen for the past 15 - moving back to the town where she grew up in 2008, after an early stint teaching in Dalwallinu and Perth, then back in the Wheatbelt, to Bruce Rock and then home.

She also knows what it's like to be a student and parent at the school - having attended herself for years 7-10 and having sent her two children there when they were in years 7-9.

Her longevity as a principal and experience as a community member would be rare in WA education, but is tremendously beneficial.

"There is data to back up that a little bit of longevity for a principal is good for a school,'' Ms Arnold said.

Her father John was a mechanical engineer for the shire, and her mother Joan worked in the town and was on the council for years.

Having attended the local public school in her early high school years, she transferred to Merredin Senior High School - now Merredin College - for years 11 and 12.

Her own children followed the same path into year 10, following the general pattern which sees most current students move away to start year 10 at Merredin College, Narrogin Senior High School, the WA College of Agriculture, Cunderdin, or a private boarding school in Perth.

READ MORE:

More historically, a lot of children would have made that transition going into year 7.

The potential for stigma to be felt by those who stay at home is a factor that Ms Arnold was keenly aware of for her own children and now for her students.

And so she began a program to ensure the school offered commensurate academic rigour, exemplary student behaviour and consistency of specialised teachers as is offered elsewhere.

"Being here and seeing the kids go at the end of year 7, I always thought, maybe we are not good enough, that's why I want them to feel worthy they need to feel they belong and to have self-worth," Ms Arnold said of the school's reform efforts.

"In the top years, the district high schools can tend to get forgotten, especially because there are parents who are wealthy enough to send their children away to private schools.''

The process of change at Narembeen has been led by Ms Arnold, her husband Russ, who is the deputy principal, the primary school deputy Lynda Cornish, the teachers, parents, a strong school board and an active Parents and Citizens' Association.

As a first step, a group of eight parents and the teachers spent 12 months researching, planning and them implementing, in 2009, a behaviour management plan specific to the school - putting them ahead of the Education Department's own Positive Behaviour program.

In particular, Ms Arnold said she wanted to address "rampant'' bullying.

"The base of our behaviour management plan is that no student has the right to interfere with the learning of others,'' she said.

"To be quite honest, my job as principal is to make sure that doesn't happen."

It has meant a school uniform - down to the white socks - is now worn by 100 per cent of students, and that standards for appropriate jewellery and piercings and safety rules for high-traffic areas such as corridors and classrooms, are enforced.

Students are expected to ask to enter a classroom and thank the teacher as they leave and repeated infringements of expectations can see them excluded from extra-curricular activities for a few days.

Within the classroom, the is a system for restorative justice.

"We did a lot of work,'' Ms Arnold said.

"We had a group of parents and teachers who researched something that was going to change behaviours.

"We started from that and built from there.

"Now we don't have to manage behaviours, because good behaviour is already embedded - we have great kids, they just do their work."

The school also established similarly high academic expectations.

And so, the teaching and learning approach is on par with what would be taught in Perth-based private schools - face-to-face, in classes of no more than 16 children (except for the pre-primary last year with 21) by teachers who are specialised in the area and freed as much as possible from onerous paperwork.

Ms Arnold teaches years 7-10 in her area of speciality - science.

Mr Arnold provides a wide range of design and technology subjects - which are compulsory in years 7-8 and offered as electives to years 9-10 - plus there is a specialist English, social sciences and physical education teachers, and a part-time teacher for food science and crafts, and health.

"I think we are the only district school in a 200km radius of us which has a full-time design and technology teacher,'' Ms Arnold said.

"We are able to offer electives such as plastics, woodwork, metalwork, photography, visual arts and graphic design.''

The primary school maintains separate classes for kindergarten up to year 3, with combined classes for 4-6, 7-8 and 9-10 - with a rotating schedule of units in science in years 7-8 to ensure each of the year groups are not being taught different topics in the same class.

Ms Arnold said attracting and maintaining qualified teachers was a continuing problem for all regional schools.

The most recent Education Department data show that across the State, teacher registrations have progressively risen every year since 2018 - from 622 in 2020 to 805 in 2021 (the most recent data available).

The retirement rate for teachers is more stable - but reaches 586 teachers in 2021.

The department was due to provide an update of recent Statewide teacher recruitment this term.

"It is a problem that often schools don't have a face-to-face teacher for maths, science or technology - because they are as rare as hen's teeth,'' Ms Arnold said.

"The State government has done a pretty good job putting in some new financial strategies where schools can't attract new teachers.

"We have been lucky and have been able to do that.

"But I also recruit intelligently.

"If we run a process, we will look to recruit those people who have an understanding of what a country town is like and understand the context of what it is like to live 300km away from Perth.

"It is also a bit of the luck of the draw that we have been able to get the teachers and keep them.''

Ms Arnold said what the school was achieving was important from an equity perspective.

Extensive research showed that children need to have achieved a sufficient level of reading, writing and maths by year 3 to graduate successfully in year 12 - which makes the kindergarten to year 3 grades vitally important.

Without reaching that benchmark, their next teachers face an uphill battle to help children reach the level where they can either achieve the prerequisite NAPLAN grades in year 9 or pass the Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment by the end of year 12, required for them to be eligible to receive the WA Certificate of Education - a mark of their successful graduation.

As a principal and one-time Narembeen school parent, Ms Arnold said added to all of this, she sees an important social and emotional benefit for students and their families in having children stay longer in their local district high school.

"As a parent, you then have your kids at home,'' she said.

"We know adolescence is traumatic for kids.

"I didn't want my children to think they were not worthy because they were still here.

"Plus I wanted them at home.

"I wanted to have an input and get to know them because - unless you are a farmer - once they go off, your kids might never come back."