Every Child Is Special

Every Child is Special is a research and development unit within Cape York Partnerships aimed at reforming Indigenous education by building student, family and community demand for high expectation, high quality education through family engagement and mutual accountability.

No Excuses!

The unit has a "No Excuses!" approach to achieving better education supply and demand and develops collaborative education partnerships to improve education supply and enable participation in education.

Educational Reform

The starting point of our research and development work was to gain an understanding of the fundamental strategic challenges facing Indigenous education as seen from the point of view of a remote community.

This resulted in the articulation of the following five steps which continue to underpin our thinking about education reform:

1. Build demand for education through family and community engagement
2. Put the building blocks of literacy and numeracy in place by the time children start walking and talking
3. Close the gap between Year 7 in Cape York and Year 8 in the rest of Australia
4. Scholarships to high quality, high expectation secondary schools across Australia
5. Education, employment, sporting and artistic orbits to the wider world and back home

Objectives

Reform Indigenous education for every child by:

• Building student, family and community demand for high expectation, high quality education through family engagement and parental welfare reforms
• Ensuring supply of high expectation, high quality education through teachers trained to deliver effective instruction and supported by school leaders and school governance committed to effective instruction
• Creating alternative domains for mainstream educational instruction, cultural transmission and concerted cultivation which provide opportunities for children to enjoy the best of both worlds

This initiative is designed, developed and delivered by Cape York Partnerships

Multilit in Cape York Schools >