Aspley State High School’s Indigenous Student Support Program is recognised as an example of excellence by the community, staff and students.

We maintain an active and positive relationship with our indigenous community who provide strong support for our program - run by Raelene Cherry.

The program centres on our Harmony Room. This resource has been allocated by the school to recognise indigenous culture and acts as a gathering point for indigenous students, parents, staff and community members.

The room also facilitates programs to improve indigenous student educational achievements.

Partners for Success

Aspley SHS supports Education Queensland’s Partners for Success Policy which aims to improve indigenous student performance - a major priority for education in Queensland and nationally.

The policy provides the foundation for our school’s objectives and actions:

1. To ensure the standards of educational achievement for indigenous students match those of the entire student cohort and to specifically target the improvement of literacy and numeracy skills in our Middle School students.

Key actions to achieve this objective are:

• Identifying and counselling  students experiencing difficulty at school
• Mediating conflict across the school community
• Assignment tracking – this involves ensuring that all Indigenous students in years 10,11 and 12 are monitored and where required given individual tailored support to ensure that all assessment work is completed
• Attendance/ lateness - this part of the program involves tracking absences and lateness to school. Parents are contacted proactively and engaged in solutions to reduce absenteeism and lateness
• Lunch – Some students have difficulty with school due to poor nutrition. Where nutrition is identified as an issue the program provides healthy food for students. The students prepare and learn about healthy eating as part of this program

2. To review our curriculum, pedagogy and assessment policies to ensure they are inclusive and effective for the learning needs of Indigenous students and improve teachers’ knowledge of and practice with regards to the learning needs of Indigenous students.

Key actions to achieve this objective are:

• Supporting individual staff in developing resources to help Indigenous students
• Conducting professional development for staff to improve knowledge and delivery of pedagogy for Indigenous  students

3. To promote partnerships between the school and our Indigenous community.

Key actions to achieve this objective are:

• Student leadership – we aim to foster student leadership through mentoring and support. The school currently has two cultural captains, both are Indigenous students. The captains’ roles involve promoting Indigenous culture and activities at the school and in the community
• Liaising with parents and the elders in the Community to help develop and review our program
• Involvement with QUT Carseldine for Indigenous University students meeting with and mentoring students at the school
• We have also commenced involvement with the Met North Yarning Circle conducted at QUT

4. To improve job seeking knowledge and skills of Indigenous students in the Seniors Phase.

Key actions to achieve this objective are:

• Increasing our strategic links with South Bank Tafe and Caboolture TAFE with a view to running work readiness programs and links to other certificate courses
• Work links – this program is designed to help students prepare for work experiences and part time jobs. Students are supported in a broad range of tasks such as job search skills, preparation of resumes, obtaining tax file numbers etc. This type of support helps to reduce barriers so that students have the confidence, skills and contacts to enter the workforce in a part-time capacity and are better prepared for fulltime work when they leave school.

Outcomes

To measure our success, we focus on four key areas - attendance, retention, completion, literacy and numeracy.

We also regularly seek parent feedback, liaise with elders for support and insight, conduct student focus groups and survey staff.
Our Semester 1 2007 outcomes were:

• Attendance - the average number of days absent for the school population in semester one was 10.5 days. 82 per cent of indigenous students were less than this average. 29 per cent of indigenous students had five or fewer days absent.
• Retention - 15 students commenced with us in Year 12 in 2007. Two have transferred to other schools, one has transitioned to work and all others remain enrolled and engaged in learning. Nine students commenced Year 11 in 2007. Six are still currently engaged, two have transitioned to work and one has left.
• Assignment completion (Years 10, 11, 12) - at the time of writing, one indigenous student had failed to submit an assignment in these year levels.  
• Literacy & Numeracy (Years 8 and 9) - these outcomes are reported annually as part of our Indigenous Tutoring Assistance Scheme (ITAS) for each student. The program measures students’ literacy and numeracy skill before and after tutoring to determine effectiveness and avenues for improvement.

Aspley SHS indigenous students represent 9 per cent of the school’s population – i.e.62 students.

Some examples of anecdotal feedback from our students:

Ike (Year 12) - “Without Ms Cherry I would have dropped out long ago”.
Ross (Year 12) - “I never handed in anything before I came here”.
Ruth (Year 12 Leader) - “This school really cares about us”.

The total number of TA hours requested was 20 hours. Our current school contribution is 10 hours plus the funding of numerous resources and materials for the Harmony Room.

We intend to improve these results with the support of funding.

Evaluation

The Partners for Success Evaluation considers the implementation of the P4S Action Plan 2003-2004 and assesses improvements of indigenous student performance.

It is hoped that through this evaluation, we will provide a clear direction forward for Education Queensland from 2007 onwards that will include a strategy that is transparent and apparent to all.

At Aspley SHS, we acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands across Queensland. We pay our respects to past, present and future leaders as they hold the memories, traditions, culture and hopes of indigenous people across our state.

We believe an understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures develops an enriched appreciation of our heritage and can lead to reconciliation. This is essential to the maturity of our nation and important to the development of an Australian identity.