Mypolonga school shop teaches kids how to be ‘first-class humans’
In this Murraylands town, for 30 years now, primary school students have done everything from making products to greeting visitors and handling cash sales.
This story is now free to read. Help Murray Bridge News tell more stories like this by subscribing today.
When it comes to teaching financial literacy, one Murraylands school rises above the others all over Australia.
On Friday, staff, students and guests celebrated 30 years of the Mypolonga Primary School shop with the launch of a book about its success.
Since 1995, for an hour every Friday, students have welcomed to the shop community members and tourists cruising the River Murray aboard the Proud Mary.
The shops sells products made by students, including chocolate-coated apricots and lemon cordial made using fruit from local growers.
It also stocks items made by local craftspeople, on which the shop takes a 20 per cent commission.
Every step of the process – from food preparation to the point of sale, leading tours and reconciling cash afterwards – is handled by the school’s students.
The project has won countless awards and grants; and has been featured on TV, radio and in a publication shared across the 38 nations of the OECD: the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In 2020, a group of Japanese academics visited Mypolonga to use the lessons learned there as the basis for that country’s financial literacy curriculum.
The shop also generates some handy income for the school – more than $7700 in 2024.
It's a charming destination for visitors and an unconventional classroom for students. Photos: Peri Strathearn.
As well as adding to the school curriculum, principal Sunyl Vogt said, the shop helped students develop essential life skills.
Just having the opportunity to start a conversation with a visitor, bidding “good morning” and asking about their day, equipped students to be fully functioning members of society, he suggested.
“It’s about us developing first-class humans, not second-class robots,” he said.
Parent and Murray Bridge High School assistant principal Josh Coulter said the shop had given his kids confidence, and leadership and communication skills.
“(Mypolonga) students bring with them a sense of responsibility and practical life skills that set them apart,” he said in the book.
“They … approach problems with a more thoughtful and solution-focused mindset, showing maturity beyond their years.
“Most importantly, the shop has given them practical life skills – like handling money, managing time and taking responsibility – that will benefit them now and into the future.”
What staff hadn’t anticipated back in the 1990s, former principal Rita O’Brien said, was how much of an impact the shop would have on students’ wellbeing.
“They get so much validation from their interactions with customers,” she said.
“It has been really important for our kids, especially those with learning difficulties.”
The shop first opened in the former post office across the road from the school, at 18 Williams Street, on May 18, 1995.
Its current premises, on the school grounds, were built a decade later, with guidance from school support officer Donna Williams.
The school’s current shop leader, teacher Mel Carstairs, was once a student who learned in the same environment where she now supervises her own students.
The book, Mypolonga School Shop: 30 Years of Enterprise, features dozens of photos and newspaper clippings from over the years.
Friday’s launch event also featured the unveiling of a mural designed by local artist Ash Thiele and painted by school students.
Ms O’Brien and another long-serving former staff member, Anne Martin, did the big reveal.
One challenge the shop was beginning to face, Mr Vogt said, was the decline in the use of cash.
Without it, students would no longer be able to sharpen their mathematical skills by adding up people’s change.
Or would they?
When he put the challenge to a group of students, one suggested charging visitors a fee, then using play money to replicate the cash-handling experience.
Hopefully that sort of innovative thinking would keep the school shop open for years to come.
“Social skills such as empathy and conversation are irreplaceable,” he said in the book.
“While the use of cash and the financial literacy skills associated with it are gradually diminishing, we deeply appreciate the visitors who continue to support this aspect of learning for our students.
“These connections are vital not only for our students’ development, but for society as a whole.”
- Visit the Mypolonga Primary School shop: Visit the school from 10-11am on Fridays. Purchases may only be made in cash.
- Buy a copy of the book: $11 at the school office.
- More information: moneysmart.mypolongaps.sa.edu.au.
