School of the fair

The National School for Travelling Show Children is a classroom-on-wheels for families who bring entertainment to showgrounds across the country.

Story + Photo Kate Newsome 

Schoolbooks and clear plastic crates, filled with counters and craft supplies, are tied down with elastic cords. This classroom is fitted onto the back of a truck. Parked in a campus of caravans, you would walk straight past it if not for the logo on the cab door: an illustration of carnival rides and the acronym NSTSC.

The National School for Travelling Show Children has a fleet of three classrooms-on-wheels. Each is accompanied by a teacher and hauled along with the families who move from town to town – tracking a calendar of carnivals and 550-plus agricultural shows across Australia.

There are a few main show circuits and the NSTSC classrooms follow the main routes, wherever there will be the most pupils – from kindergarten through to year 6 – taking daily online lessons with peers undertaking the Dubbo School of Distance Education curriculum. “Honestly, I’m in awe of them,” says NSTSC teacher Samantha Rogers. “To be able to live that nomadic lifestyle, and still just be a kid, is incredible.”

The Dubbo School of Distance Education has worked in partnership with NSTSC since 2013, following campaigning by the show community to save their classrooms-on-wheels. In a unique tri-state arrangement, families among the 400-odd Showman’s Guild of Australasia members can now enrol their children out of Dubbo, NSW, no matter where they are in the country. They pay fees and fundraise to top up grants from the NSW, Queensland and Victorian governments.

Numbers fluctuate year to year, as well as term to term, as some families return to a home base for a few months at a time. In 2025, between 20 and 30 students enrolled in the Dubbo-based school through NSTSC.

Although these students are a part of the Dubbo School of Distance Education, the NSTSC identity is essential when attending a classroom parked on or near the showgrounds. Coral Pink, whose daughter Frankie is in year two, says when the kids wear the uniform, they know, “You’re going to school. You’re going to learn.”