The Murri School: The strategies adopted

Tiga Bayles suggests that there are three main problems for Indigenous parents in mainstream schooling.

One, [there] can be a money issue, there's some cost on a family. Two is transport, how do you get them there? And three, it's a bloody foreign environment. So we've taken away those three factors.

The Murri School is more than just a school. From the beginning the vision for the school was that it was to be a community school which involved the parents and families of the students.

According to the Principal, Philomena Downey, the educational philosophy includes 'looking after the whole child and not just their educational standing'. Tiga Bayles, Chair of the Board of Directors, stressed that one of the things about Indigenous culture is 'we can't just isolate the educational needs or the health needs, or … the spiritual needs. It's the whole person, it's the whole community and what is required to make that whole community flourish and grow and get the best out of those human beings'.

Strategies adopted at the school to meet these needs include:

• The incorporation of a learning skills centre within the school that caters for the students and for the wider community. More about the Kulkathil Centre…
  
  
• At secondary level, a unitised vertical curriculum to cater for multi-age classes. Read on…
  
  
• A health out-clinic at the school to monitor general health and hearing loss in particular. Read on…
  
  
• A private bus system to transport students to and from school. Read on…
  
  
• The provision of school meals. Read on…
  
  
• Programs for parents. Read on…

Organisationally…

There are several facets to the organisation of The Murri School that make it different.

Staffing

Eighty per cent of the teachers at the Murri School are themselves Indigenous, in keeping with the philosophy of 'a Murri School for Murri kids'. The principal of the last seven years is non-Indigenous but highly respected and valued within the school community. When asked whether the aim was to have 100% Indigenous teachers at the school, Tiga Bayles replied:

It's not an issue with me any more. We've got at least 75 to 80 per cent - I think we're doing well. And I think there are good non-Indigenous people around and we've got a couple on board here who are just fantastic.

Although he indicated that a particular Indigenous woman could well be the first Murri principal of the school, he was strong in his praise for the current principal. He saw it rather as a matter of keeping on growing and finding new positions.

… it doesn't mean we say to Philo, well you can go back to mainstream now. You've done your bit so well, you've done such a good job you can go now. We don't want that.

The staff/student ratio at the school at 1:28 is no different to mainstream schools. However, through the Aboriginal Tutorial Assistance Scheme, the school has twelve tutors who are able to give the students one-on-one tuition. Depending on the entry level of the students, they receive between two and four hours individual tuition per week.

The school has also contracted a speech/language pathologist who assesses the children in a variety of areas, including reading and vocabulary, but also across the health areas. The school has found that it is often through this initial assessment that visual and hearing problems are diagnosed.

The School Board

The School is managed by an eight-member School Board. The responsibilities of the Board include: setting the vision for the school; being responsible for policy development; and giving direction to the staff.

The role of the current Chair, Tiga Bayles, is more than a manager. He is a role model and a mentor.

Sometimes I'm called in to just sit down and have a bit of a yarn to them…talk a little bit about culture and about male responsibility and different things like that. There's no set role, but we are there to be utilised, to be accessed and to be able to spend time with kids when needed.

'A group of people working together'

There is no real hierarchy within the school. The staff and students view themselves as a 'group of people working together'. Although there are different roles and responsibilities, there is not a pecking order associated with seniority.

The principal reinforced this:

…in terms of how the students think of the staff, there is no difference in terms of their respect for the bus driver and for… someone in my position.

James William, the Director of the Kulkathil Centre, in applying this to the teaching staff said

We are, in a larger sense, a big family of professionals working in this environment and there's that sort of rapport.