For the average year 12 student, weekdays tend to consist of PowerPoint presentations in packed classrooms and exam cramming in the library.
But 17-year-old Haylie Powell takes her classes alone – and they need to fit in around her full-on skateboarding schedule. When she sits her final year exams later this month, it will be from her Queensland home, with her parents supervising.
Powell – who will sit her QCE in the next few weeks – has found it challenging to stay focused on grades while she competes for a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“I was recently in California and it was hard to do school while skating all day and dealing with the time difference,” says the Sunshine Coast teenager.
“I remember submitting something at 9am in America, which was 2am AEST. The teacher was really confused. I had to remind her I wasn’t in Australia.”
Powell is one of around 1,400 students enrolled in distance education at Australian Christian College (ACC), the largest independent provider of distance schooling in the country.
ACC estimates around 10,000 students learn remotely across Australia. Distance students study the curriculum of the state or territory they’re living in – or in Powell’s case, in the state she lives in when she’s not traveling. Students dial into classes through an online platform with licensed teachers.
Distance learning differs from homeschooling, where a parent or tutor teaches the student. About 30,000 students – or 0.7% of the school population - are registered for homeschooling, up from around 20,000 in 2019.
Covid lockdowns brought distance learning into the spotlight, but the concept is not new. For more than 70 years, students in Australia’s vast pockets of remote, isolated areas have been served by distance learning.
The world’s first “school of the air” was opened in Alice Springs in 1951, using the Royal Flying Doctors’ network to educate students via radio correspondence. The school later switched to broadband satellite technology to reach thousands of children across the Northern Territory.
Broader internet access has allowed the number of distance students to grow overtime, and the “farmer kid” stereotype has evolved to include students like Powell, who balance study with pursuing a career.
After going professional at 13, Powell is now ranked within the cut-off top 20 and second in Australia.
“I’ve been to Rome twice, everywhere this year,” she says.
“California, Pennsylvania, Sweden, hold on … Prague, Poland … I got back from Switzerland six days ago so I’m jet-lagged.”
Dr Rebecca English, a senior lecturer in education at the Queensland University of Technology, says the number of students opting to learn from home has “massively grown” since the pandemic.
“Covid revealed some of the fissures with schools that were already there, teacher shortages being a massive one,” she says. “People thought, ‘it’s something we can do at home’.”
“Schools can be a toxic environment for some children who struggle with socialisation or bullying. After [lockdowns], some kids just wouldn’t go back.”
Amelia Soh is completing her HSC while studying at the San Francisco Ballet School. She’s been dancing full-time since 13, and moved to an online high school in year 9. It happened to be 2020 – the same year large parts of the nation abruptly moved to remove learning.
“Suddenly, everyone was doing online school, so it was kind of normal,” she says.
“I’ve really liked it. I don’t think normal school was ever my thing … I’d always leave to do ballet, so it wasn’t the best schedule, I didn’t have the closest friends.
“[Learning online] I’ve never met my classmates, I’ve never seen their faces. But my work is self-paced, all around my schedule.”
It’s a packed one. Soh dances from 8.30am until 4.30 in the afternoon, and studies in her down time.
Since she’s overseas, her exams will be completed alone at her home with a supervisor, a world apart from halls of students in Sydney.
“I just want to get on with it,” she says. “For a lot of my friends back home, the HSC is their entire world … I’ve got a perspective others don’t have. I’m more nervous about other things.”
Powell feels the same. She’s decided to complete year 12 without getting an Atar so she can focus on her training.
Her exams will be printed by her school and provided to her to complete at home, supervised by her parents. If she was getting an Atar, she’d have to attend school in Caboolture to sit them. Declarations have to be signed to assure there’s no cheating.
“It’s definitely hard,” Powell says.
“I’ve never been a school kid, never wanted to go, I’d rather go skate … so finally finishing? It’ll be really cool.”
