Report to The New Zealand School Trustees Association [Remote schools and their communities : what can we learn from the small island study. Report from school isolation research]

Abstract

Remoteness certainly does pose a challenge to our island schools, but just as we observe a resilience and “make do” opportunism in island communities we see this also in the schools. Participants spoke of building the learning around opportunities that arise, a whale stranding, the visit by oceangoing waka, and there appeared to be a relationship between remoteness (and inevitably size or number of pupils) in the degree to which schools were able to be opportunistic. This was colourfully described by one participant as 'we are a long way from Wellington here, the red tape stretches kind of thin by the time it gets to us '. Another participant described how the excitement of something novel on the island fired up the community and created an energy or buzz which enabled the school to take advantage of opportunities.