School of the Air is a generic term for

correspondence school Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

s 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 Works ...

and early

secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

of children in remote and

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

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

The invention of the pedal radio by Alfred Traeger around 1929, and particularly the involvement of 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. Parent ...

in formulating and developing the idea of using the existing

Royal Flying Doctor Service The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), commonly known as the Flying Doctor, is an air medical service in Australia. It is a non-profit organisation that provides emergency and primary health care services for those living in rural, remote an ...

of radio communications, were pivotal in the establishment of the School of the Air. The first School of the Air lessons were officially sent from the Royal Flying Doctor Service in

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' A ...

on 8 June 1951. The service celebrated its 50th jubilee on 9 May 2001, ahead of the real jubilee on 8 June; and its 70th year on 8 June 2021. Each state of Australia that utilises this means of training has well-documented checks and overviews of the service.

Method

There are School of the Air programmes in all states except Tasmania. School classes were conducted via

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 m ...

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. Each student has direct contact with a teacher in an inland town such as

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It ...

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 letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

services. However the extension of

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

services into the

now enables more rapid review of each child's homework. As the children are in isolated situations, the School of the Air is frequently their first chance of

socialisation In sociology, socialization or 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 cul ...

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.

Awards

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. Q ...

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's first 150 years ...

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 other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

Queensland

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

* 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 unde ...

* 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 single mines in world history, base ...

South Australia

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a seaport, it is now a road traffic and railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about north of the state c ...

– now part of

Open Access College Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (YF ...

Victoria

* Thornbury

Western Australia

* Carnarvon *

Kalgoorlie 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 sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

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 and Tanami deserts in the region of the Pilbara, an ...

, located in

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

* Meekatharra *

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

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,