Rural and Remote Education - WA
Rural
and Remote Education - WA
Meeting with Warmun Community
School students, 18 May 1999 - Notes
Five students from
Years 8 and 9 participated in this meeting at the Kimberley Language Centre
in Halls Creek.
Warmun (Turkey Creek)
is a small community between Kununurra from Halls Creek. Warmun Community
School was established in 1979 at the request of the Kija people in the
area and is administered by the Catholic Education Office. The school
offers courses from primary to secondary and has approximately 130 students
enrolled. Approximately 25 of these students are in the secondary school.
Students who wish to continue to Year 12 are encouraged to attend school
in Perth or Darwin. The main languages spoken in Warmun include Kriol,
Kija and English.
Classes
The students enjoy
sport, art, music and metalwork. They are proud of the school art shows
and also the school band which goes to Wyndham to perform. There are plenty
of musical instruments to play. Girls study personal development while
the boys study manual art.
Students in the secondary
years can study Foundation Studies and General Studies, and also some
classes by Distance Education.* Most students present at the
meeting study Foundation Studies.
They are also taken
out into the bush to learn from the elders, girls and boys separately,
which they enjoy.
Excursions
They have been on
some school excursions, for example to Canberra, which they enjoy very
much. Occasionally they have sporting events with other schools but they
would like to have more of these.
Food
The school offers
sandwich lunches. Some of the students express a desire for more lunch
food and drinks to be available.
Sports
The students want
more sports equipment. In particular they need better grass on the oval
and goal posts so they can play football.
School grounds
It is also very hot
in Warmun. The students want shade on the basketball court and cold water
bubblers to drink from. There is only one water bubbler in the high school.
One student said
that they need a separate playground for the little kids at the school.
Size of school
The students would
like the secondary school to have more students enrolled so that there
are more students to play with.
Future study or
work
The students have
no clear plans about what they wanted to do or if they wanted to go on
to study. One student said he wants to work on a station doing mustering.
Sometimes the students do have an opportunity for work experience in this
area.
The students do not
want to go away to Perth to study because they have heard that students
down in Perth pick on other kids.
* Foundation
Studies is an intensive competency-based adult literacy program which
students can study in primary and secondary schools as a transition to
the mainstream curriculum The General Studies program complements and
extends these literacy skills at the next level.
Last
updated 2 December 2001.
