Yellow Shirts helping kids get to school

Like many remote schools around Australia, Borroloola School had poor attendance, so the arrival of the Yellow Shirts was eagerly welcomed.

The Yellow Shirts are School Attendance Officers (SAOs), part of the Australian Government’s Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS), which was introduced to combat low attendance levels at remote schools around Australia. The Yellow Shirts are all locals who are usually parents or relatives of students.

Neola Anderson is Borroloola School’s Home Liaison Officer and believes that the Yellow Shirts have been vital in increasing school attendance and maintaining it at a high rate.

“All the teachers and staff at school are very busy, and we needed people in the community to focus on the kids who weren’t coming to school or who were leaving during the day, and the Yellow Shirts have done that,” Neola said.

The Yellow Shirts start the day early, heading to outstations or walking around Borroloola, seeing that children are up and getting ready for school, and then making sure they catch the school bus or walk to school. The Yellow Shirts spend the rest of their work day following up on absent students or those who have snuck away from school.

Patsy Shadforth, an assistant teacher at Borroloola School, says that one of the advantages of the Yellow Shirts is that they often have little education themselves, so they can talk from experience to the children and their parents about the importance of school.

“When we tell kids about education, some of them don’t listen because we know how to read and write fluently. But when somebody who is not so good at reading and writing tells the kids it’s really worth it to go to school and learn properly, it means a lot more,” Patsy said.

One of the Yellow Shirts is Jodie Stacey, who like many SAOs, has a personal investment in the Remote School Attendance Strategy.

“I have four kids at the school and that’s part of the reason why I’m involved in school attendance and helping other parents get their kids to school, because it’s really important,” Jodie said.

Neola Anderson can certainly appreciate Jodie’s belief in the importance of education.

“I would like to see all of our children get educated and go away from Borroloola, because Borroloola will always be here, Borroloola will always be their home, they can always come back but they need that opportunity to get out and make better people of themselves,” Neola said.