SEVEN hours drive west of Brisbane is a tiny school with 31 students who are making strides learning the local Indigenous language.
For the last eight years, all students from Prep onwards at St Patrick’s School, Mitchell, learn the Gunggari language.
Principal Emily Perry said the language was integrated across many curriculum areas like English and Science where subject-related words were translated into Gunggari by educational consultant and Gamilaroi man, Desmond Crump.
“The teachers will give instructions in Gunggari, they’ll say their morning greetings in Gunggari, we have our school prayer translated into Gunggari and other prayers like the Our Father in Gunggari as well,” she said.
Weekly half-hour formal lessons in Gunggari begin in Year 3 and continue through to Year 6.
“They love it,” Miss Perry said.
“It’s the highlight of their week.”
“When I ask them what their favourite subject is, so many of them say Gunggari – they all really enjoy it.”
Community liaison officer Sonya Martin, who has been involved with the language program since the beginning, said local elder Aunty Irene Ryder, who died in 2015, had been the original push behind reviving the language.
Miss Martin said Aunty Irene was forbidden to speak Gunggari growing up and as time went on, there was a fear the language could be lost entirely.
Miss Martin said it was Aunty Irene’s dream to have Gunggari taught in schools.
“They (the students) even say it at home now,” Miss Martin said.
“Some of the kids were telling me they teach it to their parents, their brothers and sisters.”
Miss Perry said the students had taken the Gunggari language out into the community too.
“At Anzac Day the students performed a poem, I Am Australian, spoken in Gunggari,” she said.
“It’s something that’s just not an isolated lesson that they do in the classrooms, they’re using it in their everyday life as well.”
