First Nations culture enriching the lives of all students
First Nations culture enriching the lives of all students
The 2007 establishment of Gawura – a dedicated Kindergarten to Year 6 Indigenous school within St Andrew’s Cathedral School – has achieved many accolades over the years as a highly successful model of education. We discover ‘what’s next?’ as both schools work together to improve educational outcomes for First Nations students.
By Ethan Crosweller and Melanie Collins
Gawura is known as a ‘school within a school’ for good reason. It is, after all, physically located within St Andrew’s Cathedral School. But more than that, the two schools are deeply connected; each one distinct but not separate from the other, unique and yet part of one whole. Over the past 15 years, the two schools have navigated their idiosyncrasies, enjoyed a strong relationship, while maintaining a sense of their own respective identities.
St Andrew’s Cathedral School, for many decades of its early history, was a traditional school for chorister boys. Many of the School’s traditions have stood the test of time – authentically Christian, strongly focused on excellence and wellbeing, based in the city and dedicated to offering a well-rounded education, including a strong focus on music education. At the same time, recent history tells the story of a school prepared to change and reflect on its purpose, for the sake of its convictions and the needs of others.
This included the establishment of Gawura in 2007, a dedicated Kindergarten to Year 6 school for local Indigenous students, which was a response to the systemic underachievement and clear disparity in educational outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The bleak statistics were, at least in part, a consequence of transplanting Indigenous students into an educational system not equipped to meet their needs.
“Taking an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child out of our traditional learning context and placing them in a foreign [Western] educational system, has resulted in far too many of our children being seen as failures,” said Gawura co-founder, Pastor Ray Minniecon. “We realised that it was the system that needed to change, not the child.”
Gawura co-founder, Pastor Ray Minniecon
Gawura has sought to do things differently. Great care is taken to embrace First Nations’ culture and lore in daily learning, along with intensive literacy and numeracy, and it is a day-school model, making it as accessible as possible for inner-city First Nations families.
In practice, this has looked radically practical: a dedicated bus service picks up and drops students home each day and tuition fees and additional costs are paid by generous benefactors. Many teachers and support staff in Gawura have First Nations heritage, and students are given opportunities to connect with their heritage through Wiradjuri language and cultural lessons, On Country tours and cultural excursions.
After 13 years of ground-breaking work, Gawura was recognised at the Australian Education Awards as the 2020 ‘Australian School of the Year’. It is considered a lighthouse model for First Nations education and its students are attaining results well above schools with similar populations of Indigenous students.
High hopes and hard challenges
A solid foundation has been laid yet there is still work to be done. Students graduating from K-6 Gawura face big changes once they enter the much larger St Andrew’s Cathedral School secondary school. While many students navigate their way through to Year 12 and onto tertiary study, there are others who leave the School for a variety of reasons, often as a result of relocation or struggling to fit in. This issue is one which is being addressed in the upcoming Strategic Plan.
“We know we must do more to retain and support those students who want to continue their education with us through to Year 12,” says Head of School, Dr McGonigle. “Every child in our care is infinitely valuable and we want them to thrive here, knowing they are unique and gifted for a purpose.”
“We know we must do more to retain and support those students who want to continue their education with us through to Year 12,” says Head of School, Dr McGonigle. “Every child in our care is infinitely valuable and we want them to thrive here, knowing they are unique and gifted for a purpose.”
“We are steadily and carefully introducing initiatives that will support the needs of Gawura students as they navigate the often-challenging adolescent years. We have seen a number of students go on to complete tertiary degrees and carve out careers that enable them to pursue their dreams and make a difference in their communities. But that isn’t always the case.”
One way the School has tackled the issue is by increasing the number of classes Gawura students share with their Junior School peers. Students from both schools now spend Sport, Music, Outdoor Education, as well as various co-curricular activities, in the same classroom with the same teacher, in order to build familiarity and understanding.
The School has an Aboriginal Education Mentor, Pamela Widders, whose time is dedicated to supporting First Nations secondary school students. Pamela spent more than 30 years working for the Department of Education in a variety of roles that spanned teaching, curriculum, management, recruitment and Aboriginal education. As a proud Anaiwan woman, the education and general wellbeing of First Nations students is close to her heart.
“When I first started, Gawura students mainly stuck to themselves and I could see why, because they’ve come from Gawura, where they feel at home. However, when they graduate, they are no longer Gawura students, they are St Andrew’s Cathedral School students and that is something that needs to be acknowledged and navigated,” she says.
According to Pamela, true evidence of the success of education lies in the long term not the short term.
“We’ll know we’ve made it, once every student is going through to Year 12 and coming out with marks that will allow them to do whatever it is they want to do,” she says.
Cultural shift under way
It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the Gawura community has plenty to teach the wider school community and the learning has already begun thanks to First Nations Elder in Residence and Knowledge Holder Leanna Carr-Smith, who delivers the Wiradjuri language and cultural lessons across the Junior School and Gawura. She also provides essential cultural knowledge to the School Executive, helping embed cultural governance through guided planning and protocols across both schools.
Leanna holds high hopes for what can be achieved, not only through the work of Gawura, but also in the lives of students and parents across the whole of St Andrew’s Cathedral School.
“I’m optimistic about where we’re going next. Education is the key to everything. It has the power to change people’s bias and the narrow narratives we are prone to falling for. We want to open up the narrative and say instead, this is how it really is.”
The impact is already being felt within the student body. Non-Indigenous students have more opportunities than ever to grow in their understanding of First Nations’ Heritage and Culture, the Wiradjuri language is taught throughout the Junior School, Aboriginal Studies has been launched as an elective for Year 9 students, the Secondary School has a co-curricular Wiradjuri Club running from Term 1, 2023, and students across the School participate in NAIDOC Week celebrations, to name just a few of the opportunities on offer.
One unique learning experience was the creation of an exhibition ‘peoplescape’ by Junior School and Gawura students that showcased the inspirational stories of First Nations’ heroes throughout history. The term-long project required in-depth research and creativity from the students and was exhibited in a public space beneath the School during NAIDOC Week.
According to Leanna, it’s these new learning opportunities, combined with the platform which has been given to First Nations voices through drafting the School’s approach to Reconciliation, that bodes well for the future of the School’s work in this space.
“We have sat down as a school, we have listened, and the teaching and learning is now happening. I think that’s evident,” Leanna says.
“We have sat down as a school, we have listened, and the teaching and learning is now happening. I think that’s evident,” Leanna says.
What is the role of an ‘Elder in Residence’?
My role and responsibility as Elder in Residence is really broad and goes right across the school community, even the executive staff. I think the most important thing I do is work on cultural governance, which is very different to Western society’s typical hierarchical system, where it’s about the individual. For us, it’s about a collective decision and it’s democratic, so everybody’s wish can be heard inside cultural governance. One of the things that I find very important as part of my role is to make sure that our collective voices as First Nations people is heard within that process.
Leanna Carr-Smith
The School has firmly set its sights on the future. Two major initiatives have been earmarked for the coming year. The first is the creation of a Reconciliation Action Plan, which gets right to the heart of issues that have long divided our nation. According to the School’s Director of Strategy and Marketing, Jackie Isenegger, getting it right is essential.
“We need to approach this issue so that future generations of students who come through this School, regardless of their cultural heritage, understand the truth of our history, realise the need for authentic healing, recognise and value First Nations culture and history, and co-create a place of respectful learning where First Nations Peoples’ cultural knowledge and wisdom benefit the whole school,” she says.
The second initiative is the completion of the Gawura Strategic Plan, which will establish Gawura’s vision for the future and its course of action for the next five years.
On both counts, it’s our First Nations’ voices who are leading the way. These are significant milestones in the life of both schools and demonstrate just how far Gawura has come since its establishment.
Meet our Gawura students and staff
Wiradjuri lessons having an impact
As part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival in Sydney Town Hall in mid-May, Indigenous author Corey Tutt, who wrote the children’s book The First Scientists, addressed 1000 Year 3-6 students from across Sydney in Sydney Town Hall. A group of 30 of our more capable writers across Years 3-6 attended the presentation.
Corey shared some of the 65,000 years of learning by First Nations’ people about the land, sea and sky and revealed some of the innovative feats achieved by First Peoples in the areas of engineering, chemistry, ecology, botany and astronomy.
Corey was explaining how important Indigenous language is for learning about culture and asked the question: “Does anyone know what a Dhinawan is?” A few kids scattered around the room put up their hands but ALL 30 of our St Andrew’s Cathedral School students – all non-Indigenous – sitting in the middle of the large group, put up their hands, easily sharing that the word means “emu” in Wiradjuri – something they had all picked up from their weekly Wiradjuri classes.
This was a wonderful moment for our school; to realise that we are really having an impact on our Junior School students’ understanding and learning of First Nations culture and language,” said Head of Gawura, Mr John Ralph. “This will continue into their teenage years and is something we hope they will carry into adulthood. We are witnessing the beginnings of a cultural shift in our acknowledgement and celebration of First Nations’ culture.”
“This was a wonderful moment for our school; to realise that we are really having an impact on our Junior School students’ understanding and learning of First Nations culture and language,” said Head of Gawura, Mr John Ralph. “This will continue into their teenage years and is something we hope they will carry into adulthood. We are witnessing the beginnings of a cultural shift in our acknowledgement and celebration of First Nations’ culture.”