General School Story

The first school for people in Imanpa community was at Mt Ebenezer in the old 'silver bullets' - silver railway carriages which were used as classrooms. In those days, in the early seventies, there was not yet a community at Imanpa. There were a few people living in the country here in Wiltjas (traditional bough shelters) and most people were living at Mt Ebenezer Station, at the back of where the roadhouse is now.

The people were granted land at Imanpa and the community began to be set up where it is now. In the mid eighties the silver bullets were moved up to Imanpa. They were known as the 'Silver School'. One of the carriages was used as the classroom, and the other functioned as the library and staff room.

In Jan 1999, the silver bullets were replaced with a "six room modular" which is a permanent demountable building in which the school is situated today. It was a big change and a big improvement for the school.

Imanpa School is a one teacher/teaching principal classed primary school. There is an enrolment of thirty kids whose ages range between five and eleven. The curriculum taught is the NT Curriculum Framework, but the school is flexible in program delivery because of the diversified nature of the kids attending the school. There is a strong focus on ESL (English as a Second Language) learning. Specified learning outcomes from the education department are often difficult to meet as they are affected by influences outside of the school's control.

There are no Anangu Education Workers currently at the school, although there is one lady who cleans at the school and doubles up as a school liaison person.

The school is funded by the NT Government. The programs through which it is funded are ASSPA Anangu School Students and Parents Association, SAISO - Strategic Assistance for Improving Students Outcomes and IESIP - Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Plan and the Country Areas Program.

SAISO is a program to assist educationally disadvantaged kids and IESIP is a program that is part of SAISO, specifically for Anangu children. Both programs are aimed at getting kids to school, and keeping them here. The funding is based on this and at raising the "benchmarks" in literacy and numeracy.

ASSPA - is the program which is run by the school community here. It is a great program because the school community gets to decide what the money is spent on.

Through these programs the school is able to run lots of activities for kids, such as swimming at Yulara, camping trips, visits to Alice Springs for cultural activities and exhibitions at places like the Araluen cultural centre and visits to family language related areas in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands.

There are a lot of resources here at the school. The funding received covers essential resources and money for literacy and numeracy programs and incentives, but what is really needed here at Imanpa School now is for the Education Department to increase human resources and to appoint another teacher.

The teaching principal here, Jon Whitehead, feels lucky he has learned a lot about teaching Aboriginal people over the years and he feels that Anangu learn differently from western people, and some time western teaching methods aren't right. Teaching in remote communities needs to be flexible and adaptable and teachers need to get to know their community well, to know what they think and what they expect from you. There needs to be more programs developed for teachers training college to learn about different, appropriate ways for teaching Anangu.

The attendance rates here at Imanpa School are very good averaging above 80%, and kids generally attend all day. Lunches happen at school and there is a school tuck shop which sells healthy food. There is a good incentive for kids to eat at the school which sells food a lot cheaper than the store (which has a 70% mark-up, trying to recoup an old debt).

The school teaches kids from transition up to year seven, and then kids generally go to secondary college at Ngaanyatjatjara College. Some of the secondary kids go to Yirara College in Alice Springs or to Wiltja Aboriginal Program at Woodville Highschool in Adelaide.

After returning form high school there are unfortunately no programs or opportunities for young people in the community.

outside school	classroom
Willy Riley working in the junior primary class	Melissa Wood and Mingali Wilson, ages nine and eleven
Chantelle Coombes (nine) and Ashley Kunoth (eight) working hard on an assessment task	physical education