The Dare To Lead project, to improve education for Indigenous students, is a runaway success, reports Suzanne Keen.

As a state coordinator for the Dare To Lead project, school principal Brian Giles-Browne has been in a whirl of activity this year. He has left his school, Moruya Public, on the NSW south coast, to visit other schools across the state and take part in 100 regional forums. He has also helped organise more than 60 professional development days.

It has, he says, been the most satis-fy-ing role in his 30-year teaching career.

Dare To Lead, an initiative of the Australian Principals Association professional development council, aims to improve education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The response has been inspirational, with some 600 schools in NSW alone now signed up.

“We never dreamed we would get that response,” says Giles-Browne. “The joy I have experienced is amazing—to really feel you are making a difference for Koori kids. It's amazing the amount of support and the number of good-news stories we are getting.”

Interest in the project has outstripped the capacity to fund it, says Dare To Lead officer Andrea Harms. Nationally, more than 2,200 schools have joined the Dare To Lead coalition, with 15 to 20 more joining each week.

Member schools with Indigenous students commit to achieving a goal over a period of three years: in the case of primary schools, a 10 per cent improvement in literacy performance at year 5; and at secondary schools, a 10 per cent or more improvement in completion rates for a recognised year 12 course.

Schools with no Indigenous students undertake to revise their curricula and other programs so all students develop an informed understanding of Indigenous people and culture, and of the importance of reconciliation and actively promoting contact between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, especially among students.

Aimed at principals

Giles-Browne was offered the NSW coordinator's job after making a presentation at Dare To Lead's national launch about his work at Moruya, where about 60 of the 460 students are Aboriginal. The initial goals were to encourage principals to recognise that something needed to be done to help Indigenous students achieve better results, and to make the principals aware of how their school could be more effective.

A key to the success has been the involvement of Indigenous communities, with Dare To Lead helping principals and teachers gain the skills and knowledge to make connections at a local level.

“Building trust comes down to cultural understanding and knowledge,” says Giles-Browne. “White fellas telling Aboriginal people what they need has failed miserably over the years. A lot of Aborigines won't even come into schools, and we're trying to change that.”

“Sorry time”, which might require Indigenous students to be absent from school for a significant time after the loss of a loved one, is one aspect of Indigenous culture that Giles-Browne says schools need to understand and accommodate. The schools are encouraged to fly the Aboriginal flag and to acknowledge during assembly that the local Indigenous people are the long-term custodians of the land on which the school is built.

“When you acknowledge for an Aboriginal child that you respect their culture, they will feel better about coming to school,” says Giles-Browne.

He has encountered negative reactions from a few teachers. “There are still some teachers in our schools who are incredibly racist, who don't think Aboriginal kids should be taught any differently. They are part of the problem and show why this project is important.”

He counters negativity by pointing out that the gap in academic achieve-ment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is all the evidence needed to show that Indigenous children should be given every possible opportunity to do better at school. Indigenous students have much lower attendance rates at both primary and secondary school, and are much less likely to finish school or attain a year 12 certificate.

Experiencing cultures

Dare To Lead encourages schools to share their experiences of what works. In NSW, it promotes best practice with a program whereby principals visit successful host schools such as Condobolin Primary, Queanbeyan South Primary and Crawford Primary at Doonside. Dare To Lead has also invited principals from all member schools to experience traditional Aboriginal communities in the Kimberleys, Mungo National Park and the Flinders Ranges.

A cornerstone of the project is What Works www. (whatworks.edu.au), a program with detailed action plans for improving attendance, developing literacy and numeracy skills, and promoting cultural respect, recognition and support.

David McRae, one of the What Works authors, says they identified a common set of ideas and actions that were applied in schools that had had success with Indigenous students. “We turned these into a set of tools that schools can use. It provides them with the equipment for getting on with it.” More than 11,000 educators have worked with the materials at more than 300 workshops.

“There has been a lot of enthusiasm from schools, and even strong interest from schools without Indigenous students,” says McRae. “The aim for them is to improve what is taught about Indigenous culture, history and issues. It's about trying to build a higher level of consciousness and interest across the board.”

Dare to Lead officer Andrea Harms says that, while most principals acknow-ledge they have a responsibility to try to improve outcomes for Indigenous students, many had not previously had the opportunity to learn about Aboriginal culture and issues, and were excited to extend their knowledge and understanding.

“Principals understand that they should acknowledge Indigenous owner-ship of the land, for example, but they don't know how to do it. The project will provide some models that have been approved by the Indigenous community. It offers practical ways to move forward in a very sensitive area.”

Hundreds of participating schools have ordered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, taken up subscriptions to the Koori Mail, a national Indigenous newspaper, and ordered books on Indigenous culture and history that have been approved by Aboriginal leaders.

There is also a forum of Indigenous educators that principals can speak with. “That is extraordinarily powerful because they talk the language of the profession from an Indigenous perspective,” says Harms. “It helps principals realise they are a lifetime away from understanding what the issues are for Indigenous kids, and that becomes a catalyst for change.”

The right direction

Neil Free, now principal of Uralla Central School in NSW, was involved in Dare To Lead as principal of Armidale's Drummond Memorial Public School, where half the students are Indigenous. Drummond Memorial was already focused on improving outcomes for students, but the project was reassurance that it was heading in the right direction and provided a forum to share its experiences.

An in-school tutor program was very successful. It involved training Aboriginal tutors to work with teachers on a one-to-one basis with Indigenous students to improve their literacy and numeracy. “The Aboriginal kids involved identified very strongly with the tutor and had a good rapport. They could see real value in it, and it improved their results markedly,” says Free.

Drummond Memorial invited Indigenous guest speakers and cultural groups to the school, and organised excursions to heritage areas of significance. “That helps kids to see school as not an isolated thing, but as part of their community,” says Free. “It highlights the fact that their community sees learning as important.”

However, more government resources are needed for projects that benefit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, he says. “If you have the resources, you can get the desired outcomes, and we need more resources from the government.” Merredin Senior High School, in Western Australia's central wheat belt, has about 300 students, about five per cent of them Indigenous. It is also enthus-iastic about the aims of Dare To Lead.

Humanities teacher Julie Tiller says Merredin realised there was a need to take action because many Aboriginal children were leaving school early, which meant they had limited opportunities in an area where the jobs pool had shrunk. “We felt we needed to keep them at school by making school interesting for them. It also involved the kids with the community and shows what we can achieve when we work together.”

Working with local Indigenous people (and with sponsorship from the Department of Education and Training and the Avon Water Catch-ment Group), the school has set up a “grow tunnel” where students propagate native plants as part of a long-term plan to re-vegetate the Merredin Reserve, where many Aborigines lived until the 1970s. A local Noongah man has taken groups of students on bushwalks there, showing them plant species that have been used traditionally as medicines. Students are also planting a bush-tucker garden in the school's quadrangle, and using information gained from local Indigenous people to create a website about bush tucker and bush medicine.

The activities are fitted in across a range of different curriculum areas, including humanities, agricultural studies, English and information technology.

Further funding

Dare To Lead's initial three-year funding commitment from the federal government expires in mid-2005, but it has been invited to apply for funding for a further four years.

As the project starts to collect data, many schools are already reporting demonstrable improvements in attendance and academic results—including some of the 37 that have nominated themselves for Dare To Lead's Excellence in Indigenous Leadership awards.

“If we have another three years of effort like we have had,” says Harms, “I'm in no doubt we will reach our stated targets.”

SUZANNE KEEN is a freelance writer.