From little things big things grow ...

In recent years we’ve visited families in Urandangi, Gregory Springs, Hughenden, Mt Isa, Katherine, Darwin, Moree, Narrabri, Roma, Dalby, Tenterfield, North Star, Goondiwindi, Kowanyama, St George, Bollon, Cherbourg, Cunnamulla, Longreach, Winton, Mungindi, Miles, Boomi, Thallon, Taroom, Charleville, Blackall, Warialda, Munduberra, Gayndah, Condamine and more …

Why do Fairholme staff – boarding, academic and leadership, traverse country roads each year, visiting incoming students, their families, and their schools? Because data would tell us that forming relationships prior to school entry, reduces the impact of homesickness.

In 2014 Fairholme undertook a two-year research project through Independent Schools Queensland to understand the structures that best support the transition of boarders from their home to Fairholme. Through this, we came to focus on the transition from home to boarding and to consider this widely across all entry points of the College. We have not stopped our ponderings as a result, and the transition programs that operate across the whole College are under regular review and refinement.

One of the main findings from the Boarder Transition research project was that visits to our incoming boarders’ homes or hometowns in the year prior entry to school, had a powerful and significantly positive impact on our students’ ability to start learning with greater immediacy. It is a self-evident truth that a student who is settled at home or in boarding is better placed to approach learning positively and effectively. Additionally, understanding our student’s background in a real sense, is the first step in establishing a relationship of trust.

Whilst one building block does not create a tower, we believe it does provide the firmest of footings. It nudges us to an understanding of the contrast between the home and the school environment, it introduces us to the significance of pets, the vastness of properties, and the importance of family. It is a lesson in empathy and awareness. Furthermore, it reminds us all, each time, of distance and not just in a literal sense.

After all, we do have to persevere when travelling distance.

As staff we are enlightened and humbled each time as we calculate the kilometres many of our Boarder families undertake to enable a Fairholme education. We have a glimpse of long, tedious straight roads, often pitted with potholes. So too, we encounter kangaroos, bush pigs, and the occasional guileless emus, and road trains that appear endless and impossible to overtake, safely. Travelling west late in the afternoon means blinding sunlight and it also means vast open plains, mountains that appear blue on the horizon, sorghum crops standing to attention, the fluff of cotton crops caught in road grass and cattle that graze, oblivious to the traffic that passes them. We all have to travel distance to get anywhere. We have to travel as staff, to gain insight.

Enduring the potholes, persisting through tedious kilometres, and negotiating an overtake of too many road trains is a means through which we are actually forging connections. For each and every country visit to our new families, we are building relationships and nurturing potential in our incoming students. That’s why we travel north, south, and west each year – thousands and thousands and thousands of kilometres. Because we believe, and data confirms, that it makes a difference.

These visits allow our new boarders, leaving home for the first time, to settle faster and to feel a greater sense of belonging. For their parents, these visits allow the first layer of the fundamental platform of trust to be established. Without it, the journey ahead will be less fruitful.

Travelling distance, is but a small gesture of commitment to our families, but an important reminder that, in Australian singers/songwriters Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s prophetic words – ‘from little things, big things grow.’

Dr Linda Evans

Principal (and avid western traveller)