Cobar High School principal, Shane Carter, has this week been recognised for 30 Years of Service by Education NSW.
Mr Carter has spent all of those 30 years teaching and in leadership roles at Cobar High School.
He’s passionate about education, the school, his staff and his students.
“I think everyone deserves fair go and everyone everyone’s entitled to an education,” Mr Carter told The Cobar Weekly.
“We’ve been working here at the school for a good 20 years trying to increase the importance of education in the lives of kids.
“They all seem to think they’re going to leave school and get $100,000/$150,000 job in their first year.
“That’s not how the majority of the world works. There are some jobs in the mine that pay that to apprentices, but for most it’s going to take you a long time to get there.”
He said teaching roles have very much changed in the past 30 years.
“It’s a completely different game these days.
“The complexity level has increased out of sight and social media has not helped it.
“There’s some great things about advances in technology in classrooms and there’s been a lot of terrible things about technology in classrooms.”
He said in his 30 years of working in the field of education, there’s been a lot of challenges that both he and the school have had to overcome.
“Funding has been a big problem over the last few years.
“We’ve also now got growing student needs, particularly in the area of mental health support and welfare.
“We’re being asked to do a lot more of the parenting role.
“Without a doubt it’s harder to be a teacher now than what it was when I first started.
“It’s not the three R’s anymore.”
He’s also seen a lot of rewards in his 30 years.
“Jason Foster made me look good with his Band 6 achievement in Construction, the school’s sunflowers (that won an Australia Day Award), and the COBAR sign.
“I really enjoyed coaching the rugby league team in the early days—it wasnt necessarily the best players that stand out as the great memories. It was the ones who listened to what you were teaching.”
Mr Carter has worked with over 450 teachers at Cobar High.
“I’ve been a bit of a nerd and kept all their names,” he said
Mr Carter has also been a mentor to many and said he was proud to see a number of outstanding teachers still working at the school as part of a very good core group of staff.
Mr Carter said teaching hadn’t been his first choice for a career.
“I wanted to be an engineer, but I didn’t get the marks and ended up on a different career path,” Mr Carter told The Cobar Weekly.
“I had a couple of teachers, who were good role models, and I thought that could be pretty cool. I went to Newcastle University (in 1990) and did a Bachelor of Education with a focus on Industrial Arts Technology.”
After graduating, Mr Carter’s first teaching position was Cobar High School.
“I arrived in town on Anzac Day in 1995 with two black eyes … from playing footy.
“I pretty much fell in love with the town straight away.”
He became involved in the community playing rugby league, Touch, cricket, golf and bowls, Squalleyball, squash, tennis, basketball, mixed netball and whatever else was socially happening in Cobar.
Meeting Joanne Knight (a local girl who had returned to Cobar to teach at Cobar Primary School) whom he later married (and had a family of three girls with) also contributed to him staying in Cobar.
He went on to become a Head Teacher at the school in 2002, was promoted to the Deputy Principal role in 2011 (under principal Sue Francisco) and
