The student in this conversation is a recent graduate of Alia College.

H – Hagan Mathews (program coordinator)

P – former student

H: Thanks for talking to me. I’ll just jump in to asking you questions and if you have any questions for me you can ask me at the end. Is that cool?

P: okey doke.

H: I’m looking at some stuff to do with students who are having trouble going to school. They have decided they don’t want to go to school anymore and they are trying to re-engage. So is that something you’ve had experience with in the past?

P: Oh yeah, totally. That was a large part of my schooling.

H: Okay and would you mind telling me a little bit about where that started?

P: Um I don’t really know how it started I think it was partially because my sister also did the same thing, like stopped attending, and I think that put in my brain like “that’s a bit of an option” and that was the start point. And then gradually over time like one day, two days, three days, it just escalated.

H: so how old were you when you started?

P: Um Year 7, the start of high school. I think it was like half way through the year and I stopped attending a little bit at a time and then moved schools like a week before the end of the year to M, and then it was good for a bit and then the same process again.

H: So the first time you started to stop can, can you remember what the causes were?

P: not really. That’s something that bothers me is I don’t know the entire reason why. I don’t know, it just felt easier to do nothing than to do something.

H: and what would you say is the difficult thing? What is the alternative to nothing? Was it getting up, or doing work, or interacting with people, or wearing a uniform? Or something else?

P: I don’t really know. Because I was fine with the work. My social group was all right. I had some problems with the teachers at my second school but that was after I’d stopped attending. I don’t really know.

H: Was there ever a point when you weren’t enrolled in a school? Because when did you come here? Year 10?

P: Year 9, my day that I visited was the muck up day.

H: at that point when was the last time you had been to school?

P: I think occasionally I would just go now and again, to, kind of, stop the fighting at home. There was that. There was also a six month program that I went to that helped quite a bit, the Southern Teaching Unit, it’s a little building on the Berendale campus. Most people are there for anger issues and I didn’t get along with a few of them, some of them were kicked out for being a bit mean to me. But at the end of the day it was all right.

H: so when you say it helped you, what did it do?

P: it helped me get in the rhythm of actually going to school. And kind of, because it was more base level stuff, it wasn’t very complicated, it was very much like, relaxing and we’d go to the gym twice a week, the days were broken up.

H: why do you say more relaxing?

P: maybe it’s not the best word. Maybe less stressful.

H: what was less stressful there? Why do you remember going to the gym, for example?

P: I think they were just fun parts of the day. The other people I didn’t like in the class, you could punch them in the gym because we did boxing and stuff like that. I think it was more because I knew what I expected from that day. So it wasn’t like, Oh god, what’s going to happen today.

H: so it was predictable.

P: yeah, it was very much more structured.

H: How did you make the move from there to coming to Alia? Can you tell me a bit about the transition?

P: The program was the whole week, in place of school and school hours. And it lasted for a semester. I went back to M for a little bit but I was looking at other schools anyway and one of the staff members from the teaching unit suggested Alia. I had a look around and thought all right, this seems similar. Not exactly similar but at the teaching unit if there was any trouble there they would get everybody in a room with a whiteboard and write up what went wrong, what they think the consequence should be, and then everyone could vote on that. It was a similar responsibility, I guess. And just small. Smaller helps.

H: when you came to Alia, what were some of the difficulties with re-integrating into a school?

P: I didn’t attend Year 10, really. I think the hardest part was making friends, because there’s such a limited amount of people and a few little cliques. And I was like, I don’t really fit in to any of those. And I didn’t want to run in and insert myself to any of them because it was a small community. I was like I don’t know how to make my place in here.

H: everything was established already.

P: yeah and that made it difficult to enter into.

H: So how did you deal with that? As you say you were coming infrequently for a year, what changed?

P: I think getting to know a few people. Originally I couldn’t find rooms to study in for Year 11 and so I went into the office (recPtion/administration office) occasionally and that continued on more and more so I felt like I knew some people. So knowing some people, not really many students. That helped a lot.

H: you found a place.

P: yeah. Took about a year but, found it.

H: I mean, what’s the rush? Do you think, talking about what might have made things difficult, what do you think might have made things easier for you in that year?

P: I didn’t feel like it really snowballed that much. With other schools it was like, “Oh, you’ve missed out on all this work, you need to make it up.” At Alia it was more, “Oh you’ve missed out on all this work, let’s give you a hand to not miss out on so much.”

H: and what about something that could have helped you but wasn’t, I don’t know if you’ve reflected and thought it would’ve been nice if this or that happened or made things easier, do you have any thought about that?

P: I don’t know if there’s anything that would’ve. I think I kind of needed time to settle. I don’t know.

H: That is pretty much everything I wanted to ask you about. I don’t suppose you have any questions for me.

P: not really.

H: I don’t know why you would. I’m looking into setting up a program to help people who are coming infrequently to the school to come more regularly. It’s interesting the way you’re saying a bit of time actually made you feel, if you feel happy where you are right now, you or anyone, you look back over your life and think well I’m happy here so everything must have been all right. So I wonder, do we really need a program? If we do give people that time to figure it out for themselves?

P: I think you do still need the program because, like, the time was kind of needed as there wasn’t really anything in its place. If there was something that got me there earlier I would have been like “yes, please!”

H: maybe you have spent less time thinking about that.

P: it caused a lot of trouble at home. Most mornings started off screaming.

H: I’m hoping it can be a place where the stress of what people are thinking and feeling can be focused.