At the 1977 Small Schools Conference in the Northern Territory a great deal of concern was expressed by representatives from all over the Territory about the lack of continuity in small schools. One manifestation of this was the absence, in many cases, of meaningful student records that allow a new teacher to immediately make some valid assessment of the attainment levels of his students that he is about to meet for the first time. Allied to this problem is the lack of old programs to show the new teacher what has been done in the past. Teachers coming into such a situation are therefore likely to suffer drastically from the “what am I doing here” syndrome. And in the middle of the bush, 400km from one’s immediate superior, help is NOT as close as the telephone.

It was, I think, the concensus of the Conference that the Department should stipulate a minimum standard for the keeping of educational records (as distinct from stock records, stamp records, maintenance and repair records, and other types of administrivia too numerous to mention which are the bane of the small school teacher’s existence, and are probably one of the reasons adequate educational records are not kept anyway) to ensure that new teachers coming into the area do not have to spend the first six months trying to determine what the children know or don’t know, what tools are available to fill the lamentable gaps, and devising methods to put these into operation. And if the teacher is only at the schools for one year, it doesn’t leave much time for teaching anything new to the children.