21 August 2015

I met Deb Kampl (above) last week. She's the art teacher at Harrisfield Primary in Noble Park, one of Melbourne's poorer suburbs.

The school does not have a music or drama teacher. Deb is really it for the arts. To try to address this imbalance, CRT teachers sometimes teach music, but it's not an organised part of the curriculum. So, what they do is have a whole week of arts activities every two years "Arts Festa" and produce a school production every other year. Pretty good effort with no drama or music teacher!

Last week, Deb had three incursions through SFS and a couple of others - so we thought we'd check it out.

What we found was a school that was obviously multicultural - most students looked Sri Lankan or Asian. The students were very engaged, well behaved and keen to participate during the show we saw there ( BRASS BEDLAM) on Friday.

Deb explained the music, drama and dance incursions for the week are funded by the school, with a budget of $30 per child. She said the idea was to engage and inspire the students.

There are also special visual art activities in the week and an art competition, too. She told us that a couple of years ago, she'd asked a student to develop his design for the competition at home. He then asked if he could borrow some textas. After querying other students too, she discovered hardly any had textas or colouring pencils at home.

Last Friday afternoon, a big surprise was planned for all the students. With a tear in her eye, she explained that she'd applied for and received $3500 from a community fund, so every student could be presented with their own special materials pack containing things like pencils, textas and a ruler.

We also teared up when she said that. That such simple aids to education and imagination were not in every home, was a shock. Of course, that is not to diminish what the students' parents do provide for them, but a recognition that in our education system, having these items makes life easier and better.

How lucky are these kids to have dedicated teachers like Deb, her Principal and colleagues? Their passion to do the best for their students and give them a broad education despite lots of barriers, is so impressive. I'm sure, in many ways, it's typical of dedicated teachers in our schools.

The Arts Festa Week at Harrisfield is undoubtedly inspiring to students, but even more so, to have teachers who care and want to give their students the best experiences and go out of their way to create them, is to me the most inspiring thing of all.

Karen Keegan, SFS Director.

Brass Bedlam's Katy and Bernie go on a fox hunt. Look closely and you'll see the wiley fox just behind Katy.

Deb also booked the Splitter's Welcome to Music and Two Friend's Around the World and Back Again through SFS