Overnewton Anglican Community College students are inspiring young refugees and migrants to get the most out of their schooling, but it’s not just new residents from Burma, Mauritius and India who are learning important life lessons.
Eleven senior and six middle-school students, including Jake Stevens, 13, travel to Sunshine on Thursdays to guide grades 4 to 6 pupils through an oral language and literacy program. Jake said the experience had taught him not to take his own education for granted. “I’ve done four or five classes so far and I’m really enjoying helping others.”
He works one on one with Hasnen, 10, who arrived in Australia only six months ago.
“He’s picked things up pretty quickly,” Jake said. “He learns about sentence structure and learning to communicate through games.”
Organising teacher Diane Rufus said: “Our students have found it to be an incredibly rewarding experience.”
