Creating and celebrating place and partnerships : a key to sustaining rural education communities

This presentation brings together the findings of research conducted across three large Australian studies into the recruitment and retention of rural teachers and leaders. Key themes drawn from each study for ways of promoting quality teaching and learning and sustaining rural education communities will be discussed. All studies have highlighted the need to better prepare rural teachers and leaders to create and celebrate a notion of ‘place’ and to identify and strengthen partnerships within and across rural and urban spaces. The presentation will focus in particular on the emerging sub-themes of linking rural school leadership and community renewal, the importance of developing partnerships to sustain the rural workforce and the need for creative enterprise to be acknowledged as important work of rural teachers and leaders.