Nardene talks about her schooling and work before beginning VET (2:47)

I went to Larrakeyah Primary School but then I went to boarding school in Charters Towers.

That’s so interesting.  Why did you go there?

Because my mum she thought if I went to high school here, she thought I’d run with the wrong crew.  Yeah, she thought by sending me away yeah, because in that way she like valued education, so she thought that being away that I’d concentrate more on my studies than running with the wrong crew. 

I thought it was a good decision because it got me mixing with different nationalities and of course like some of the girls in my dorm like came from overseas so they – when we first all got there, we were like missing home and like homesick so we like banded together like sisters and, you know, like, you know, shared things.  When we went to school, we would like, yeah, hang around together and, yeah, because we come – of course they would come from overseas and I was coming from here, from Darwin, it felt like I was coming from overseas because of the long flight, yeah, so and they didn’t have no family and I didn’t have no family so we sort of had a common bond.  Yeah, and then the good thing was that it got me mixing, like, out of my own comfort zone.

Did you go right through to Year 12 at Charters Towers?

I went through to Year 10, yeah, but then I left school and I ended up yeah, falling pregnant, yeah.

There or back here?

Yeah, like back here when I got back here because I met, yeah, a boy and yeah, I fell pregnant and yeah.  So yeah I – yeah after, when I finished Year 10, I fell pregnant so I grew up, yeah, my son, and then yeah, I yeah worked, like I was like in and out of jobs, like yeah I worked as like an in-school tutor and also an Aboriginal Resource Officer in schools.  Yeah, I did a little bit of that until, yeah, it led me to doing my Cert IV. I wanted more. Something more stable.