Laynhapuy/Yirrkala Homelands School – A Criticial Friendship partnership

About the project

The proposal is driven by the shared agreement that keeping kids on Country to complete their secondary schooling needs to be a valid option for the many Yolŋu families living in one of nine homelands in the Laynhapuy region. Secondary schooling in the Homelands is not new, but with the opening of a boarding facility in the Nhulunbuy township in 2015, the secondary program declined.

However, many Yolŋu families have long called for a valid choice for their children to complete a quality secondary education on Country. The newly named Makarraṯa program at Garrthalala allows students from surrounding homelands to attend school during the week to gain an education. The staff who travel out each week, or live at Garrthalala have worked collaboratively for many years and now have the opportunity to further develop their program.

Assisting the teachers, Yolŋu educators and rangers to articulate the school’s approach to Senior Years education is important because it helps to align what the school is doing with the SA curriculum and allow these educators to focus on pedagogy and practices that support Yolŋu students.

For many years, the development of ‘both-ways’ learning that acknowledges the importance of both Western and Yolŋu philosophy informs collaborative planning for curriculum, well-being and pedagogy.

Yolŋu pedagogy has long been referred to as part of this but what does it actually mean? Without simplifying or assimilating Yolŋu values and knowledge systems, there is an opportunity here to articulate and detail what a Yolŋu pedagogical framework is, such that it’s communicable to other educators and to education systems.  

Without prescribing ways of working and communicating, there is an opportunity here to describe elements of effective partnerships at LHS and how they support community goals, self-determination goals alongside student achievement and well-being outcomes. This documentation process can contribute to an existing intercultural knowledge base from this context.