‘I’m not going to sugar coat it’: meet 2021’s most resilient school leavers

For some young people, finishing school in a global pandemic was made more difficult by the compounding effects of disadvantage.

Sometimes it feels as though everything happens at once. In year 12, as Sara worked to finish high school during the second year of a grinding pandemic, allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan and, in the vacuum they left, eased the path for the return of the Taliban. Sara was born in Afghanistan and arrived in Australia in 2010 at the age of seven, speaking no English.

The twins are the eldest children in their family, raised by their single mother, and stuck together during the pandemic to help each other and their younger siblings with maths and English homework.

There is a misconception in some circles that public school is entirely free. While there are no school fees in the strict sense, there are book and stationery costs, uniforms, excursions and other incidentals, for which families receive little or no support.

Each obstacle has a multiplier effect and for any child transitioning from school to the workforce or higher education the accumulation of disadvantage can weigh heavily.

Bayler, 18, wants to be a mechanic but in the meantime is dealing with a birth defect that results in his kneecap, or patella, popping out during minor exercise. The tendon is in the wrong place.

It is no small thing to be thrown into upheaval, especially when your own circumstances - like all the young people in this story - are filled with the friction of daily existence.

“In a workplace or a school place, your brain is structured to be in that learning or working mindset, but when I am at home it makes me feel more inclined to relax,” Maddie says. “You have to force yourself to remember, ‘No, you are in school time now; you actually have to do some schoolwork.' ”

Maddie is the youngest child in her family and was the only one at home this year. She has been with The Smith Family support program Learning for Life since year 8.

“My dad told me a couple of times, and I didn't really understand him until recently, he said, ‘When we are confident, we have a plan, and we are not going to continue the poverty cycle. No one is going to guess that you've come from this. You've come from the ground basically.' ”

By his own account, Jaye lives in a tiny and rundown public housing home in a suburb marked by high rates of poverty. He is glad that Covid-19 had little interruption to his schooling in Western Australia, and he finished the year as school captain. Jaye, who is still 17, won multiple awards for academic achievement and community spirit. He is wise beyond his years.

“I don't want to get emotional but, like, I don't invite friends over to the house because it's a mess, but that's where I live. I've come out of the rags, I've worked hard and with the help of The Smith Family and my brothers and my family and although we don't get along sometimes because of how crammed in [we are], we are proud of each other.

“Sometimes people don't understand it and people shy away but it means a lot.”

Last year, in a real-time economic experiment, the federal government effectively doubled the unemployment benefit and lifted other welfare measures in a stimulus-linked move that proved people can be lifted out of poverty. It was unwound almost as swiftly as it began, thrusting hundreds of thousands back into crisis. In the absence of an effective safety net, charities such as The Smith Family are left to fill the gaps.

Students such as Jaye, Sara, Layne, Bayler and Maddie are proof of what even a modest investment can do for people in the most challenging two-year period for any school leavers in modern history.

The future is hard to predict, of course, but it is a little easier to imagine for these kids. Jaye, for example, wants to be a marine biologist.

“Even though I'm seasick, so that doesn't help,” he says. “I suppose I'll get used to it.”

By Rick Morton, Author and Senior Reporter for The Saturday Paper. First published by The Saturday Paper, 11/12/21.