James Moran's Country Change Journey to Hay

Hi, how are you? I'm well.

Yeah, cool. I finished uni in Sydney and was going travelling the April of the next year. I thought, I want to do something a little bit different. So I went out to Broken Hill, just something very far away to do. I did my time there. It was really, really fun. But I was in a fantastic school and I loved the school there. However, the principal is still a good mate of mine. He had been there for donkey's years and he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, nor should he. So Hay was an area through doing some footy coaching here through the school's thing that I had my eye on for a few years. So through being at Broken Hill, I rose from a classroom teacher to a numeracy role, then a curriculum leader, I guess you'd call it. Then the principal's job came up in Hay, probably the right time for me. It was just a position... I was pretty young, I was only 30, I think when I got the job, or 29 turning 30 when I got the job, which is pretty young for a principal. And just the opportunity was there to get a little bit closer to family and home and in a really beautiful town that, as I said, I had my eye on for a little bit. And yes, the opportunity arose and I applied and it was successful.

Yeah, absolutely. I've got plenty of friends in Sydney and they're fighting for jobs, fighting to pay rent in Sydney and things like that. When I go to even the diocese conferences and then the state conferences, I went to one last year and I did laugh and chuck it myself. Probably an arrogant way to put it. I'm not trying to be arrogant, but looking like all these principals are significantly older than me. They've got more experiences as a principal as I do having a teaching degree. But yeah, I was lucky to get the job. The school in the town has been a really good fit for me. I think the school especially was after a younger principal. And I think the town really appreciates someone who's community-minded as well and gets involved in the community and sport is the heartbeat of the committee, right up my alley. So it just fit both parties.

Yeah, so Locky's five months now, so he came along this year. No, look, it's been awesome. My wife, Kate, being from down in the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria. I didn't think I'd want to end up back in Sydney, but since moving out West first and then certainly here to the Riverina, I have no intention of returning. I like going back and seeing, catching up with people, but certainly I can't see myself leaving. It's just a really nice town. From the day we turned up, the first thing that threw us back was just how friendly and welcoming everyone was. I felt really bad that everyone was going, 'Hello, James. Nice to meet you. Congratulations.' I'm pretty bad with remembering names. So I've got to, 'G'day mate.' Just how super friendly everyone was. I was playing footy and still playing footy. Kate was playing netball. Just being able to get involved in sport in the community. I think the town, when they could see that we were happy to invest in the town, looking for property that we've now bought in the town. The fact that they can see us here long term as well is really important. The question I got when I first got here was, 'Oh, how long are you staying for?' Because they're used to people just popping in, getting a job and leaving. But with just how friendly, how beautiful the town is, and just the area in general, we're happy to stick it out long term.

Yeah, absolutely. So me, driving to Sydney. Mum moved back up the Northern Rivers, which is still quite a fly away, but that's just the way it is. But I still got a lot of my mates, my uncle and my sister in Sydney. It's easy to get back, even in Griffith, it's only an hour and a half and you can hop on a flight, which is handy. My old man's in Melbourne and Kate being down from the Bellarine prior, that if Kate's family wanted to come and see us, it was a massive 13-hour day in the car trip, but now they can just leave whenever they're here in 5, 6 hours. Plenty of times, Kate and I last year wanted to go watch the footie in Melbourne, so we just hopped in the car on the Friday, when you're there by 9:30, 10:00, and you're home on Sunday and not being wrecked from so much time in the car. In terms of location, it's been really convenient getting to Sydney, Melbourne, even Mildura, the other way. I had one of our best mates living there for a long time. So location-wise, there's a lot of good places in really close proximity, which has been great fun for us.

St Mary's, no. I think it's the community. And the parents, they're all just honestly super, super lovely. Of an afternoon, we have a duty roster that says who's on after-school duty for dismissal. But every single teacher goes out there and we just hang out at the gate, have a chat with the parents. Then the teacher will often just sit there and chat away with the staff. In terms of the staff grouping, maybe it's because we've got more time and we're not thinking about fighting peak hour traffic on the way home. People are happy to just hang out, have a chat after work, do what you need to do. Then I often work a little bit later, but then you're still home in the daylight and you can still go home and hang out with the family, go down to the brief for a swim if you want, go to footy training, go to play cricket. You've just got time to do things. I think in terms of the parents, they're just super friendly and super welcoming. I joke that when we go to Sydney and we take the dog a few times, and even the dogs just aren't as friendly as Sydney. They just don't want to play with them as much as the dogs do out here. We certainly found that through the people. And then, yes, it's just the staff. Maybe it's just that laidback more lifestyle people. If you're happy to hang out, have a yarn, and catch up.

It's exactly the same. Often in country areas, and especially the case in my school, we actually have considerably smaller class sizes than what they were in the city. So anywhere from 10 kids to 20 kids, where in your city schools, you jam pack 30 kids into a classroom. So the actual attention that the students get from the teachers is so much higher, and they get a lot more one-on-one support. In terms of resources, we're funded exactly the same as other schools. Being out here, we actually get more funding than a lot of the city schools just due to our location and things like that. In terms of resources, computers, Chromebooks, anything. I guess the only thing we don't have access to is as many outside providers. There are some music guys down in Deniliquin and Griffith and great sport providers locally. But in terms of that, we get the teachers the resources and we upskill them. I guess, post-COVID, around COVID, Zoom has really helped that. Now we can just use Zoom to access all those providers and the people staying in the city. I've got incredible teachers and staff here that I would back into teaching a very high quality Sydney class any day of the week. It's one of those things, I guess, you don't know how good it is until you try it. But there are certainly a lot of advantages to being out here in the country in terms of what you can access, the care, and even just the teachers knowing the family and knowing the student. It's very rare if you're in Sydney, if a student sees you out, they're a bit gobsmacked by it. But here it's just everyday life. You know the student, you know the family, you might have heard through the grapevine, which sometimes isn't the greatest thing. Something might have happened in a family. When the teacher gets to school, they know straight away to keep an eye out for that child and give them a bit of extra TLC just because you're aware and you can be aware. It's a real village approach to raising children. It's not isolated. You're in school from 9:00 to 3:00 or whatever it might be, and then you leave and you forget about them because even from a business perspective, everybody cares what happens in their community, so they really are supportive.

Yeah, absolutely. I might be down at all. If you're on a third of the night, you see your kids at school, and that's normal, that's okay. Then you get that extra chance to catch up with your parents. Instead of just being a very quick chat at the gate talking about education, you're talking about, 'I know you're working for the new mechanic now. How's that going?' You actually know families and things like that. Even something as small as, we had a wire broken on the trailer, our school trailer the other day, and I just asked a parent and he said, 'Yeah, no worries, I'll fix that for you straight away.' Just in terms of helping that community feel like everyone's happy to jump in, do what they need to do. Really involved the school. The community is really proud of the school. When I first came here, the school was probably small when it should be. It had a few years and just a few staffing, it wasn't the greatest at the time. But since I got here and we've been rebuilding really, really fast, everyone in the community is just every time they see me, saying, 'Oh, you're so good. We're so proud of the school. We went there and it's a real community feel around the school and wanting it to succeed.' Now that it's succeeding, they're really proud as well.

Not really. I remember the first time I drove the Hay Plains, I was like, 'Wow, this is incredible.' I came from Mildura across. I came from the West. People told me how flat it was. I just couldn't believe you just literally look around and it was just flatness going on forever. Now there's been a lot of stock on the road, cattle and things like that. I don't think I ever quite get over driving. Look, if you're driving in dust, you are a bit more wary of wildlife, things like that. But it's so nice during the day. I still love seeing packs of emus. When you see those massive lots of hawks, when you see those eagles. They're so incredible to see on the road. No, I don't think you ever actually get over it. I think you take it for granted just seeing roos all the time because growing up in Sydney, it was very rare you'd see it. I've got a bit of family overseas and they say, 'Oh, did you see kangaroos often?' It's like, 'Yeah, all the time, why?' I guess you try not to take it for granted, but it all just does amaze you all the time. The beautiful sunsets around your autumn time, the sunsets that come through here is something I've never seen before.

I agree. Those big deep skies.

No, not at all. But it's incredible.

I think what it also makes me out Hay is... I'm unashamed. It's really sport-based with everything. Hay really punches above its weight because it's got AFL, Union, League, soccer started back up again. It's got so many sports, but it's really cool, the shops. When I first came here, we said, coming from a place that had a Coles and Woolies, we were like, 'Right, every two weeks, we're going to have to shoot off down to Deni or Griffith or somewhere just to do our big shop and things like that.' But we actually haven't. The supermarkets here are really good. The butcher is incredible. There's electrical stores. There's everything you actually need straight away you can access in town. That's something that really threw us back. There's obviously that awesome yoga studio that Kate has really gotten involved in. That was one thing that didn't concern us coming here, but we made a plan for getting out of Hay to do all that big shopping and things like that. But it hasn't really made a difference at all, to be honest. The shops here are incredible, and that's something that I think people assume isn't that great in country areas and the access to anything?

Just the ability of work-life balance. At the moment, I walk to school and about to move into our new house, and it's going to take me all of a one-minute drive, two-minute drive. Just being able to have a life as well as work and teach, and for families as well. Every afternoon, I talk to the kids now, they're heading to the pool or heading to one of the incredible parks here. You've just got more time in the day, which is so good. You've probably got more money as well because the cost of living is significantly lower. In education, whether you teach in Sydney or Hay, it's actually the pay rates are the same, and teachers out here actually get more because of government incentives to get people to move rural. You're definitely better off working in the country than you are in the city. And it's just such a better lifestyle.

You won't regret it. Just rip the bandaid and do it. Worst case, you get out there and you totally hate it, what's six months of your life for trying something that could be incredible? When I left Sydney to go to Broken Hill, I didn't have a job. I thought, 'Oh, so you want to turn up again?' I'll never go back from not many months in. Now being down here in the Riverina, it's one of those things, it's very daunting and very scary to do first. But once you get out and you settle in, not even 10 years down the track, I've got a job as a principal, I'm married and I have a five-month-old child. From leaving Sydney and being straight out of uni thinking, 'Oh, what am I doing here?' It didn't take me long to really fall in love with it. I can set myself up.

They don't believe you. They're very... A few of them are very intrigued about the opportunities for camping and things like that. I was actually chatting to a bloke on the weekend about camping and how he has to travel from the Eastern suburbs to wherever he has to go. It's a couple of hours, where here there's a couple of really good camp spots, 10 minutes up the road. I think they are in a way, but they don't want to admit it.

No, thanks so much. Happy to be here.