Field services

Field services such as home visits and mini-schools are offered to all isolated students.

Home visits

Visiting homes and families of students (primarily enrolled in the isolated category of enrollment) is an important aspect of the philosophy of DE.

Home visits enable teachers to better:

understand the student, their responsibilities, personalities, hobbies, likes, dislikes - This helps to remove the barrier of isolation.
know the students contextual environment and working conditions.
understand and cater for the supervisor in their educational role.
assist the student with problem areas of learning with equipment and face to face teaching.
assist the supervisor with techniques that may enhance home learning via DE.

These home visits are coordinated by the class teacher through consultation with the supervisors and the BWSODE executive structure.

Mini-schools or workshops

A mini-school involves inviting parents, students and supervisors in the isolated, traveling and medical categories of enrolment to the Walgett or Bourke centres. At times a central location may be used to combine the centres.

Mini-schools may involve two, three or four days of "face to face" teaching and learning opportunities for the students, supervisors and teachers. Most commonly there are three mini-schools per year - Term 1, Term 2 and Term 4.

The primary aim of a mini-school is:

to provide a venue and activities conducive to the development of socialisation skills.
to enable teacher, parents and students to work together in group activities.
to workshop parents/supervisors in the philosophies behind Key Learning Areas and education in general.
to create a sense of whole school identity among students enrolled in DE.
to enable teachers to work directly with their students, covering areas of learning that are difficult to assess through standard DE mode.
for teachers to discuss student progress with the supervisors/parents and vice versa.