St Andrew's Cathedral Gawura School

The continued strong growth in Gawura this year has been extremely encouraging. It is wonderful to see the children’s day to day effort and enthusiasm for all aspects of school life. Each day begins like the last. Smiling faces, a chat with our bus driver, a race around our rooftop playground and into class to make the most of every opportunity. This love of school is infectious and it is promoting tremendous success both individually and collectively.

Gawura was established in 2007 by St Andrew’s Cathedral School in response to systemic underachievement and the clear disparity in educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The Head of School at the time, Phillip Heath, along with Pastor Ray Minniecon and Sharon Minniecon, and the original taskforce saw the need to close the gap, and in doing so, brought the Gawura vision to life.

Gawura stands for our school’s commitment to reversing the overwhelming educational disadvantage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, which exists across the whole country. As a day school in Sydney’s CBD, St Andrew’s Cathedral School demonstrates its commitment to this challenge by offering a unique, culturally enriched educational journey to Indigenous students who live in the CBD’s neighbouring suburbs.

The aim of the program is for our Gawura students to achieve educational outcomes equal to (or better than) their non-Indigenous peers. Our mission is to break the entrenched cycle of disadvantage experienced by Indigenous children by providing them with the best opportunity for educational success, a choice of direction for the future and a foundation upon which they can build for the rest of their lives.

Gawura’s mission is to provide a quality Kindergarten to Year 6 education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in a caring, Christian environment. The emphasis is on high standards of literacy, numeracy and social skills that are foundations for life. All graduates of Gawura are offered scholarships to St Andrew’s Cathedral School for secondary education. St Andrew’s vision is to inspire students to be passionate, creative learners who engage with the message of Christ and fully develop their gifts and abilities in order to serve in the world.

Gawura is a unique, coeducational Kindergarten to Year 6 day school for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who live at home with their families. Engagement of the Gawura families, parents and carers is critical to the success of the program. With up to 28 students, Gawura is a highly-acclaimed, highly-regarded ‘lighthouse’ model for Indigenous education, offering students a supportive, nurturing space where they feel secure and learn at their own skill level, participating in individual numeracy and literacy programs. They achieve academic milestones daily and grow in their abilities in academic subjects, sport and the arts. The school program is funded primarily by individual and family donors, corporates and foundations.