Kormilda College NT
Kormilda College is an Anglican and Uniting Church Day and Boarding co-educational secondary school with more than 600 students, located in Darwin. Kormilda College offers the International Baccalaureate Middle Years and Diploma programmes in addition to the Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training. Students are from Darwin and remote areas across the territory. Indigenous students make up approximately one third of the student cohort. The college seeks to inspire its students to be life-long learners who act with compassion and justice through their understanding of others, and who develop the wisdom and courage to shape the future
The college has been intent on fully implementing the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia across all subjects and year levels. In doing so, teachers have been encouraged to develop their Asia capability knowledge and skills by developing learning and teaching resources and engaging in regular professional learning opportunities.
Kormilda College has participated in Asia Education Foundation's Australia–Indonesia BRIDGE School Partnerships Project since 2009. The college has developed and nurtured four partner school relationships in Indonesia. These successful partnerships exist in Surabaya, Mataram, Ambon and Ubud. They are fostered through annual visits and exchanges, including a Kormilda College years 11 and 12 trip to Indonesia each year to visit the partner schools in Surabaya, Ubud and Mataram. The partnership with Ubud has added momentum as this is the sister city for Darwin that sees the city council as a key stakeholder.
These BRIDGE Project relationships have acted as powerful catalysts in driving the next phase of Kormilda College's Asia capabiity journey. The college has built on the strength of these links to further embed the cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia across all learning areas, develop suitable learning and teaching resources, and encourage teachers to build their Asia capability. Teachers are now more aware of the imperative for students to broaden their knowledge and understanding of Asian languages and cultures. In particular, the members of the college's English faculty have developed a set of high quality resources that assist in including the cross-curriculum priority into their teaching programme. Support for this initiative has been sourced from Charles Darwin University's Confucius Institute. A further key relationship has been established with the Consulate of Indonesia.
Kormilda College has been taking steps to extend its Asian languages programme. It is phasing out French language over time and replacing it with Mandarin. The college's other two languages on offer remain Spanish and Indonesian. In order to supplement the introduction of Mandarin, the college is now seeking to form a relationship with a school in China. The Mandarin language option has proven to be very attractive for students at the college.