Donna Loughran was shocked when the principal told her she had failed Year 10. Despite missing 76 days of school, she didn’t think it would result in a meeting with her parents and the principal. “I lived day-to-day and I didn’t think about tomorrow,” she says.
But Donna wasn’t skipping school to avoid hard work; she had found a part-time job at a milk bar.
Primary school and the initial high school years were enjoyable for Donna. But by the beginning of year 9 she was bored.
“I was just disconnecting from the curriculum that I was learning. It didn’t seem to be really relevant to me,” Donna Loughran tells Insight.
Working at a milk bar was an opportunity to learn the skills first-hand that she only read about at school. With very few friends finishing high school, Donna says her options were getting a job or getting married and having babies.
“I think it was the first time that I had a disposable income,” she says. “I mean my family, we grew up in housing commission in Mt Druitt and so we didn’t have a lot of cash growing up.”
Donna was given the option of repeating Year 10 or finding a new school that would allow her to complete her Higher School Certificate.
Donna Loughran and Steve Duclos, on Insight Source: Insight
After deciding to give education another crack, Donna made several calls before she found a school willing to take her. Cambridge Park High School accepted Donna on probation and she had one term to prove that she was committed to getting an education.
That’s where she met legal studies teacher, Steve Duclos, who she describes as “very tough and didn’t take any nonsense.”
It was Steve that would push Donna to consider the opportunities she could have beyond high school.
Further reading
How a rock and a teacher changed Denzyl Moncrieff's life
