Placements in rural and remote schools
Rural and remote locations offer great lifestyle and teaching opportunities and should be top of your list when deciding where to build your teaching career.
You have the opportunity to kickstart your career by completing your final or penultimate professional experience placement in one of our identified rural and remote public schools in NSW.
Experience the rural lifestyle with another pre-service teacher from your class. Your peers can help you navigate the journey: support each other, share costs, learn together, have fun!
The rural professional experience Extended Induction Package will support your journey.
Rural professional experience program
The Department is currently collaborating with major universities to offer rural placements to their teacher education students. Check with your university if they are involved in this program. To be eligible you must:
- be enrolled in an initial teacher education degree.
- be ready to complete your final or penultimate professional experience placement.
- have a paid Working with Children Check approval number
- have completed all mandatory departmental Health & Safety training, for example, anaphylaxis, CPAT and e-Safety
- be committed to the values of public education and be eligible for employment in a NSW Department of Education school at the end of your placement.
The Department’s rural professional experience program offers eligible pre-service teachers:
- facilitation of a placement in a rural or remote area of NSW
- access to funding for travel, accommodation, and expenses during their rural placement.
- accommodation arranged by the Department
- the opportunity to attend placement with a peer who is also eligible for the program.
Employment in a rural or remote public school
Teachers who work in NSW public schools in rural or remote areas may be eligible for a wide range of great financial incentives and other professional benefits, depending on location.
Visit our Choose rural pages to find out more about the benefits associated with specific rural and remote locations and learn about the areas and schools involved.
Pre-Service Teacher Testimonials
Here are testimonials from previous participants on their funded rural and remote professional experience placement:
I wanted to thank you all so much for the opportunity to take my final teaching placement at Yanco Agricultural High School. I had a fantastic experience, learning so much in a good school with welcoming staff and students.
The placement also opened my eyes to the potential of teaching rurally in the future. Prior to this placement, it would have been very hard for me to contemplate leaving the Northern Beaches where I have lived all my life. However, after such a positive experience at Yanco, I would definitely take any opportunities that arise rurally in the future.
I believe this is a wonderful program that you have put together, and I am very grateful for being one of the first students to be a part of it. Thank you!
Completing our final teaching experience in Leeton
Completing our final teaching experience in Temora
Video: Completing our final teaching experience in Wellington
Video: Completing my final teaching experience in Menindee.
Video: Completing our final teaching experience in Moree
Speaker: Madison Cox, Pre-service teacher
Hi everyone, my name is Mady I'm from the University of Wollongong and I'm currently completing my last semester of uni and doing a bachelor of primary education and I just completed my internship in Tamworth. So I'm just here to answer a few questions for you about doing a rural or remote prac. So where I did my previous prac so my three previous pracs were in the Mungo area so no more than 20 minutes away from where I lived and the opportunity came up to do a prac in Tamworth and I thought, why not? It'd be a great opportunity the department of education organizes everything including the school, accommodation and they also give you an allowance. So you actually get paid to do your internship which is also great. So why I chose to teach in the Tamworth area post uni so basically I am deciding to go back to Tamworth for term four. There are so many teaching opportunities the schools themselves are just lovely and it's just a great opportunity in general how I found my accommodation and how I've made it my home. So the accommodation that was provided was amazing it backs into a farm, it's just a beautiful house and I've organized with the landlord to rent there as well as my roommate who's also from the same uni as me. We're both going back for term four so we organized a rental agreement for term four. So yeah, I'm really happy about that the house is incredible. The country school community, so basically I feel like this is something everyone should experience. It's such a tiny community, the teachers, the families, the kids, everything that admin staff like everyone's just so close and so supportive it's incredible. So after the school gate closes, so basically with COVID social things bit hard at the moment, obviously but at my school, there was four other practice students mostly from different universities as well. So that was great way to get to know people and obviously just know that you're not alone you have other people with you and where I hope to see myself in two years. So in two years time, regardless of location wise I guess I just hope that I'm in a supportive and inclusive school environment and that I'm incorporating things that I learned on my rural prac, because I learn so much just different things that you don't really get to see in schools at home, I guess but for anyone who's on the fence and thinking, Hmm, should I do it, should I not? Honestly, just go for it like it's great experience. However long your prac is just a few weeks of your life, its great honestly, I couldn't recommend it.
Video: Completing my final teaching experience in Narrabri
Speakers: Ellen John and Clare Bollen, Pre-service teachers
- My name is Ellen John, I'm a classroom teacher, here at Narrabri Public School.
- And I'm Claire Bollen, and I'm currently doing my internship here, at Narrabri public school. So I'm a student at the University of Sydney. I did my Bachelor of Arts, and now I'm doing my Master of Primary Teaching. I did my first teaching prac last year, in the Northern territory in Maningrida. And now I'm doing my second prac and internship combined here at Narrabri.
- I studied in Wagga Wagga at Charles Sturt University. I studied a Bachelor of Primary Education and I did full pracs in country areas. Griffith, Wagga, Claire and here at Narrabri Public School as my internship.
- So I teach rural scholarship holder which means my internship was chosen by the department. And I'm just really lucky that I got placed here at Narrabri.
- When I arrived here for my internship I had a friend who had a spare room so I stayed there for my accommodation and that's how I found a accommodation around town.
- I was lucky I was paired up with a girl who's doing prac at the high school so we just rented a two bedroom apartment through Airbnb and we've just made it our temporary home. We cook together every night and we've just got some candles and plants to make it a bit cozier. It's really nice, it's only five minute walk from school and I love being able to walk not having to drive or catch a train or a bus to school.
- The country life is really rewarding, people are quite friendly, welcoming, willing to share things with you, show you around town. And after the school gate closes, I like to enjoy sport catch up with friends, go out for breakfast and dinners and on Friday afternoon, we like to catch up with staff around at the pub.
- The school community and the wider community have been really supportive and friendly. Everyone's so willing to share things or show us around or give us tips. I've only been here seven weeks and everyone's made it feel like a home, same as El, we get drinks and dinner at the local pubs and then on the weekend I like to go out bush walking or hiking and just seeing everything that's around.
- Teaching is a rewarding profession and I can guarantee that if you choose a country area like we have here in Narrabri you'll have a great time.
Video: Completing my final teaching experience in Broken Hill
Speaker: Bill Shipway, Pre-service teacher
Good day, my name's Bill, and I went to UTS. I studied the bachelor of education and international studies. I did my proximal over Sydney, mostly in the inner West. I'm in the Western suburbs. I chose the broken Hill area just because I'd heard so many fantastic things about it. And I've always wanted to live I guess a country life growing up in Sydney. How I found my accommodation. Well, I found that through the principal of the school that I did my prac internship. And now that I work, which is Broken Hill Public School or central, as it's known locally. Then after that because I had joined forty clubs, Central Broken Hill Football Club. I made quite a lot of mates. And then one of them offered me a room to stay or him and his partner. So, I stayed there. He's a primary school teacher. Shay is a high school teacher just recently moved in with my partner who I met out here. Also who came from Newcastle. The country school community is absolutely fantastic. I love it. You see your kids everywhere you go. You find yourself shoveling dirt, and you find yourself doing the extras around the school. But your lifestyle here is such, he'll say, yeah. I'm not complaining about that. Outside of the school Gates, I play 40 Go Camping, join sorts of different classes. You find yourself learning new skills all the time going forward with driving, stuff like that which I've never done, going hunting, stuff like that. Yeah. I love it. There is so many opportunities. You don't have to be a sporty person. You can be an artist, and you can- you can do all sorts of things. Yeah. I love it.
Video: Completing my final teaching experience in Harden
- Hey, how's it going? My name's Alex and I am studying Secondary Teaching at Sydney University. My major teaching area is History and my secondary area is Commerce and Economics.
- Yes, I'm Dean and I'm also at Sydney Uni. I'm doing Secondary Teaching as well, doing Maths and Science and focusing particularly on Senior Chemistry.
- Yeah, so we are doing our final internship placement at Murrumburrah High School, which is about four hours Southwest of Sydney, 90 minutes from Canberra near the town of Young. It's actually the smallest high school, government high school in New South Wales. So a very different environment to my previous experiences in Sydney which was, one was at a comprehensive high school in Western Sydney and the other one was at a private school. So very different to those experiences as an, obviously out here as part of the rule experience programming.
- Yeah, it was a very good different change. I had one on the northern beaches of Sydney and another one in the inner west. Both were public comprehensive schools that had quite big numbers of students. And it's quite a different experience here.
- Being in a school with 110 students or so. So very, very different. In terms of accommodation, it was all sorted by the departments. They, set up a place and this obviously came out of the stipend that we got. But as we both know, we had a bit of flexibility on that. Like you contacted the departments.
- Yes. Who were able to kind of, with consultation, we were able to choose somewhere that we were all happy with so that we could kind of you know, all come to an agreement on a place that was suitable for everyone.
- Yeah, and it's been, it was a lovely place. Bit out of town on a farm living the farm life you know, waking up to sheep, it's great. It's very different to living in a city or a town. It was quite and been a great experience. In terms of the country school community, it's been fantastic. Everyone is so friendly, so willing to help and they really take you under your wing and support you throughout. I mean, if you ask for anything, they'll help you out, they'll make sure you feel welcome and set you up really well and I'm sure Dean is gonna say the same.
- Yeah, it was very, very welcoming, everyone was very welcoming here from the very first day. You know, everyone wanted us to get involved in everything and you know, everyone wanted us to be a part of the community which was a very nice feeling to have people around that always wanted to help you. It was great.
- Yeah, yeah. And with lock down and stuff this year, I know all my friends in Sydney who were doing their internship spent the first few weeks doing really online while out here we were allowed to be in the classroom and teach face to face which was a massive privilege with the lockdown. But you know, following a few safety, test your environments, as much as slight requirements, wearing masks or that sort of thing we were able to have a pretty normal internship on the whole.
- Yeah, definitely. And it also helped because outside of class or outside of teaching, we were able to go out and do stuff. We're able to you know, see all the scenes that were around us.
- Yeah.
- And you know, we'd go with teachers and staff you know, they'd invite us to go see places with them, we were able to have dinners with them, we were able to you know, play some sports with them and stuff, so it was quite good being able to come here, being able to be part of the community, being able to make lots of friends very quickly which was great. So we were able to you know, play tennis, basketball.
- Go to bush walking, hiking, swimming.
- Yeah.
- So much to do and to explore the country areas is just such a fantastic experience.
- Yeah, sure.
- I've I personally loved my experience doing a rural placement, it's been fantastic, it's been a great opportunity to sort of try before you buy when considering teaching in country areas.
- Yeah.
- And I know Dean.
- Yeah, I got a job at the end of this. So, you know, by the end of this internship, they offered me a permanent full-time position which is terrific to get straight out of uni. You know, there was a position available here and they needed a science teacher and so I was able to fill the position and now I have a full-time job.
- And that seamless transitioning to next year and to full-time work.
- Exactly.
- But yeah, so if you're thinking about doing a rural placement, I strongly recommend you do. Give it your all, it's a great experience to sort of you know, add an element to yourself and you know, I'm sure future employers will love the fact that you've put yourself out of your comfort zone and really tried something different.
- Yeah, I think it's a great experience. You know, there's no harm in doing it. You know, it might be a bit of a leap to do it but I think it is a really great one. And it's, you've got a lot of support both from the schools and from the Department Of Education which is terrific to have.
- Yeah, totally. So if you think about it, do it, good luck. You'll love the experience, see yah.
- See yah.
Hi, my name is Chloe, and I'm studying a Bachelor of Primary Education with an Early Childhood specialization at the University of Notre Dame in Australia, Sydney. Previous placements I've been at in Campbelltown at St. Peter's Anglican School, I've been at Camperdown Early Childhood Center, and now I'm currently at Portland Central School, 45 minutes from Bathurst. My accommodation is in Bathurst, and I'm staying at the CSU University. I've got shared accommodation with other CSU placement students. I have my own room, but kitchen and bathroom and lounge facilities are shared, however, it's been really good. Housemates have been wonderful. During the week, we will have dinner, we'll each individually make our own dinners, and then we'll chat about our days and have a really nice time. This uni has a gym, so I go to the gym a couple of days a week. I also walk around the grounds, or I walk up to Mount Panorama, which is about a 45 minute walk up to, or I walk into town, which is 30 minutes. So it's very close proximity to things walking wise, as well as driving wise, it takes you two minutes to get to Mount Panorama and into town, so that's been wonderful. The school community of Portland Central School has been wonderful. It's small, however, the students are wonderful, the teachers are fantastic, and all the teachers there, they're all there to help one another, and they're there to really support the students. They really care for the students and want them to succeed and make sure that they make good choices, so that's been really wonderful to see and be a part of. Throughout my time, the staff have been welcoming. They've been really considerate, they check in on me, they check to see how I'm going. They give me wonderful recommendations, like places to go, things to do on the weekend. They've invited me to social events on numerous occasions, which I've been and done. So, I went to a brewery in Bathurst. So there's lots of things to do in these little country towns, but it is just a slower place, and it's a bit nicer, it's a bit more relaxing, and enjoyable. Weather hasn't been too cold, which has been great. Throughout my internship, I enjoyed it so much that I really considered moving out this way, and potentially having rural teaching opportunities, and I extended my internship for an extra week, just to be a part of it. I highly recommend.
- Hi, I'm Seren. I'm Alicia.
- And we are studying primary education at the University of Wollongong. I did my previous placement at Cromer Public School in the Northern Beaches,
- And I did my previous placement at St. Therese in Wollongong. We've been staying in Eden and working at Pambula Public School.
- And the accommodation we've been staying in has been lovely. The Eden area is really nice and the beaches are lovely. Community is such an important aspect of schooling here. All the parents, teachers and students know each other really well, so the teachers are really well equipped on what happens in students' home lives and sort of their background and where they're coming from from an educational perspective.
- The school community has also been really welcoming to all of the prac students and made us feel at home while we've been here.
- Yeah, everyone's really lovely.
- It's been really nice after school to be able to explore the local area, and it's also been really good coming down with a group of like-minded students who are interested in rural teaching.
- If you're thinking about rural teaching, I definitely recommend this opportunity. There's so many opportunities, rurally, and the schools are fantastic and the teachers are so passionate about teaching and I'm definitely thinking about rural opportunities after this placement.
Hi. I'm Belee. My name is Will. I'm Jordan. And I'm Ben. We're all pre-service teachers from the University of Newcastle studying high school teaching. We're here out in beautiful Bourke.
Yeah, so we're staying at accommodation out here in town. We've got a really nice place. It's all modern, recently renovated. It's right next to the school. We literally just walk across the road, and we're there, really convenient, really easy. It's a five-minute walk to the IGA, and it's a really good, nice location, really loving it out here.
Yep. And then for what's outside of Bourke, what I could recall is, so the other Friday, we went on a field trip to some Indigenous cultural art site where there were cave paintings, and we got to observe those with teachers, and then we got to go out and look at like a lookout and stuff. And then other things to do is like lots of four-wheel driving. There's a lot of fishing that happens in town as well, and motorbikes are very popular. So yeah, it's fun.
In terms of community and stuff like that, and students at the school, everyone's pretty easygoing. Like, where we're from, there's a bit of hustle and bustle, but out here there's not much of that. Everyone's always down for a yarn and up for a chat. Everyone's more than accommodating for whatever you need, and everyone's down for a laugh. So that makes it good fun.
It's really interesting working at a community-integrated school, how much they take from the local community, local Indigenous people. I think it's all really important. I think for me especially, this is my first time teaching out in rural areas. I know some of other guys are thinking about it, but definitely because of this placement, I'm considering coming back out here post-grad or even for my internship. So if anyone's seriously considering a rural opportunity, I think this is a great opportunity to try before you buy. Yeah, it's been a really rewarding experience for all of us, I think, and...
Come out the back of Bourke.
[Belee and Ben] Back of Bourke.
[Jordan] See you guys.
- Hi, my name's Chloe, and I'm studying a bachelor of primary education at the Australian Catholic University in Strathfield. I'm currently in my third year, and my previous two placements were at St. Kevin's Catholic Primary School in Eastwood, and then at Croydon Public School. I've now just finished my third prac at Martins Gully Public School in Armidale. I applied for a rural prac because I really wanted to experience something out of my comfort zone, which it definitely was. I was here with three other ACU students. However, I'm on a newer course map, so my prac was three weeks long and started a week early than the others, where theirs was four weeks. It was quite therapeutic alone, but I really was happy to see some friends when they came up. We stayed at the University of New England campus, which is huge. Lots of amenities such as a fully equipped gym with a pool, rock climbing, squash courts, tennis courts, full-sized sporting fields, probably more that I've forgotten, but it was quite big, and it was only a short walk down the hill from our rooms. The rooms itself were a decent size, with a king single bed, wardrobe, desk, chair, and some large windows. The windows had fly screens to keep the bugs out, so you could keep them open and let the fresh air in. The temperature in Armidale can get quite cool, but inside the buildings and the rooms, it was nice and warm, so you didn't really feel the cold until you went outside. The bathrooms and kitchenette facilities were down the hall in a shared space, and there's key card access to everything, which makes it quite safe and secure. I made myself comfortable by exploring the shops in town, and I enrolled myself into weekly Pilates classes in the town center to make it feel more like home and kind of mimic my normal routine. And then within the first week, I was comfortable and settled. The country school community are so friendly and accommodating. Martins Gully welcomed me with open arms and assisted me with anything I needed during school. The staff were so friendly, giving me lots of tips and tricks for getting around on the weekends, and they even drew me a little map to explore the Waterfall Way. And then when the others came up to join, after school hours, we would have dinners together, explore the pubs, the markets on the weekend. So that was all really nice. I enjoyed my rural experience, and I think it's a great opportunity for something new and something that will broaden your perspectives. I now have an open mind in teaching outside of Sydney.
Coming soon
Hey, everyone.
I'm Jayden and this is Jess, and we're currently studying secondary education
at the University of Sydney. So we're currently in Dubbo
for our first ever placement and we're really excited
for this opportunity to study rural
for our first teaching placement.So we went to
Dubbo College South Campus and we had a great impression
of the school community. We'd been welcomed
by the staff and students and in particular the NAIDOC ceremony
and we were given a chance to learn more about the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities and their culture.
So in terms of what happens after school, most days
we go out shopping and one of us could cook dinner
and most Fridays staff would go down to the local pub for a drink.
So we would participate in sort of a bit of socialisation
and debrief of the week with them. And so being in Dubbo as well,
we also got the opportunity to head to the zoo and
check out the local Dubbo jail. So yeah, we stayed at two different places
over the course of our placement. The first one was a Charles Sturt uni next
to the Senior Campus for Dubbo College and the second one was the University
of Sydney Rural Health School.
For those who are interested in teaching rural, we really recommend coming out here.
It's been a real cultural change but also so rewarding
seeing the environment out here and it's such a worthwhile experience
for anyone coming from the city.
Whether or not you are sure, or you just want to check out what
teaching rural is like, it's such an amazing experience to
broaden your horizons.