Community approach boosts school attendance

For the Mornington Island community in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, encouraging students to attend school has sometimes been a struggle, but a new community approach is making all the difference.

Their success was recently featured in the Closing the Gap: Prime Minister’s Report 2013.

Mornington island is one of 29 Remote Service Delivery (RSD) locations. As part of their RSD their local implementation plan, the Mornington Island community made it very clear that closing the gap in education is a high priority.

Getting children to stay in school is an important step in closing the gap in educational outcomes, but in 2008, the Mornington Island State School was struggling with an attendance rate of 57 per cent.

With Australian Government assistance, Mornington Island State School, community and other local service delivery organisations have been putting their efforts into making school a fun and rewarding experience for children.

As a result, enrolments have been steadily increasing, and while average attendance rates across the State have remained relatively static, attendance rates on Mornington Island increased to 70 per cent in 2011.

School NAPLAN results have shown a significant and sustained increase in each of the areas of reading, writing and numeracy.

One of the many programs that have helped to improve educational outcomes is a partnership with the Mirndiyan Gununa Arts Centre, which supports community elders to teach culture and language in the school.

Together, elders, the centre and school are developing a set of local language readers in both the traditional languages of the Lardil and Kaiadilt groups of the region. Students also regularly perform with the internationally recognised Mornington Island dancers.

A school incentive and rewards based program is in place to reward excellent attendance, achievement, and behaviour.

In September 2012, the Mornington Shire Council and other local service delivery organisations provided work experience opportunities for high school aged students, to give them a taste of future job opportunities from mechanical and construction trades, child care and health services, to working for a government agency in a remote community.

The local Police Liaison Officers of the Mornington Island Police-Citizens Youth Club also work closely with the school, providing mentoring support and regularly delivering programs to support positive behaviour.

Mornington Island State School has received additional support through the Low Socio-economic Status School Communities National Partnership Agreement that has enabled the school to recruit and engage staff with specialist skills to address the needs of the students, and in particular support the increased focus on literacy and numeracy.