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The Cathedral School offers AIEF Scholarships for boarding students.
In 2023, The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James had an enrolment of 1133 students from Prep to Year 12. Of these students, there were 123 boarding students from years 7 to 12, and 74 Indigenous students from Prep to Year 12. 30 of these Indigenous students are AIEF Scholarship holders. Many of the indigenous boarding students come from remote or very remote communities. We have students from Driver and Pine Creek in the Northern Territory as well as Bowen, Bamaga, Cairns, Cloncurry, Coen, Cooktown, Croydon, Ingham, Lockhart River, Middlemount, Moa Island, Mt Surprise, Mt Isa, New Mapoon, Normanton, Palm Island, Richmond, Seisia, Thursday Island, Townsville, Tully and Yarrabah.
Our Indigenous Student Engagement and Learning Unit have worked with the School Executive, Middle and Senior School teachers and staff to support stress free transitions into boarding as well as academic success for the students. The Indigenous students also meet regularly with staff of the Indigenous Student Engagement and Learning Unit to ensure any barriers or issues don’t culminate into problems. They take the pastoral component of their roles very seriously to ensure the students feel supported and part of the overall school community.
In 2023, our students have again exceeded the national average in their NAPLAN results. We are exceptionally proud of their hard work and the efforts of our teaching and non-teaching staff. We have a team of four working directly with the Indigenous students: Jasmine and Kirrily, who are assisting students in classes and after school tutoring; Katie, who runs our one-on-one literacy program and undertakes afternoon tutoring; and Sharon, who oversees the team and handles all pastoral care and academic related support.
Sadly, we were not the recipient of the National Indigenous Australian Agency (NIAA) Grant in 2023; however, we are hopeful to meet the criteria in 2024. The grant enables us to boost the support we offer our students and grow cultural knowledge within the school community. We are pleased to be connected with the NIAA locally, and they are supporting the school through future funding opportunities. We are also very excited to unveil our new Cultural Mural on the exterior wall of our new Learning Hub in the new year.
The following AIEF students held leadership positions within the school this year, and we are exceptionally proud of their achievements and dedication to their roles. Tyrelle is a Boarding Captain in Boys Boarding, Taylor and Ella are Boarding Captains in Girls Boarding and Charlotte is a School Prefect. Ryan was also our Chatham House Leader in the Middle School. In the sporting arena, both Luca and Shaquana have been in representative sides. Luca represented North Queensland and Queensland Country for Rugby Union, and Shaquana represented Townsville in Netball.
Our students continue to celebrate our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Significant Dates, ensuring the broader school community grows their knowledge of First Nations People and gets to enjoy their culture. The NAIDOC Week Theme this year was “For Our Elders” and NAIDOC Week at our school occurred in Term 3. The week commenced with assemblies for Junior School and a combined Middle and Senior School Assembly. We were pleased to have a parent of one of the Indigenous students at the school perform a Welcome to Country at the event. Ashley also assisted students to prepare for their Aboriginal Dance. It really was magnificent and featured Ashley’s two children from Kindy and Prep. We also performed a Torres Strait Islander Dance and thanked one of our local families for assisting in preparing the boys.
This year the activities we undertook across the whole school included coconut husking, boomerang etching, weaving, threading, hunting activities, the forever popular face painting and we also made key rings with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flag colored beads. To wrap up the week students had a bush tucker bake sale and cooked damper, scones, wattle seed brownies and sold salty plums to raise money for one of our local Indigenous community kindergartens.
This year, the graduating Year 12’s attended the AIEF Graduation Ceremony at The Calyx which is part of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney. It was a wonderful event, and the five graduating students from our school, Clayten, Tyrelle, Ella, Taylor and Charlotte, thoroughly enjoyed the night and their experience in Sydney. These students have great plans for the future, including university for Tyrelle, Taylor, Ella and Charlotte in the areas of the Arts, Criminology, Nursing Midwifery and Biomedical Science, while Clayten is excited to pursue a trade.
As this is my last year as Principal of The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James, I would like to extend a warm appreciation to AIEF for their contribution to the education of the First Nations students at the school. I am sure your foundation will assist students for many years to come.
Your investment will help more Indigenous students access world-class education and careers.
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Australian Indigenous Education Foundation
Suite 2A, Level 2
2-12 Foveaux Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
T (02) 8373 8000
F (02) 8373 8001
info@aief.com.au
www.aief.com.au
ABN 13 127 908 187
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