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.
