Two Australias Together

The partnership between Wesley College and the Fitzroy Valley community to establish the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School was featured in the R.M. Williams Outback magazine (Issue 77, June/July 2011). The following is an excerpt by Felicity Brown:

In the Western Australian Kimberley region, an exciting new era of education has emerged as the result of a partnership between the Aboriginal people of the Fitzroy Valley community and Melbourne’s leading independent co-educational school, Wesley College. 

The Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School is situated on Leopold Downs Station in the Fitzroy Valley, a region known to its traditional owners as Yiramalay. The station is run by the Bunuba Cattle Company, which is owned by the Bunuba Aboriginal Corporation. 

In December 2010, the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School received full registration as a senior school and now proudly offers full-time, hands-on, work-related learning and training opportunities to Fitzroy Valley and Wesley College students through the new National Diploma of Education.

Dr Helen Drennen is the principal of Wesley College, Melbourne, and one of the key people developing this project, which she describes as “bringing two Australias together in classrooms that move between the city and country”.

“The concept of a studio school is one that is adaptable to the environment,” Helen says. “The school is flexible and movable; a practical place of doing and often a classroom without walls.” 

The Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School opened in the Kimberley with a welcoming ceremony on August 15, 2010, on the completion of student and staff accommodation and a multi-purpose teaching classroom and training facility. The traditional owners of Yiramalay provided a 20-year lease to the joint venture between the Bunuba Cattle Company and Wesley College and are proud to be further involved through on-site employment opportunities and in the development and delivery of programs at the school.

“Wesley College, Melbourne, is the first school in Australia that has registered a campus in another state and we are very proud of this,” Helen says, confirming the expectation of the school’s current 40 students to grow to a full capacity of 80 to 100. Helen came up with the idea of the studio school in 2006 after experiencing a similar concept while working overseas, and together with ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) developed the National Diploma learning framework for the senior years.

Launched in the first term of this school year, the National Diploma [framework for learning] is a new framework for learning, that enables students to develop academic, industry and personal skills, within a vocational context.

For more information about the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School please click here.

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