Building Inclusive Schools: Strategies & Learnings from Milpera State High School

The team has engaged with young people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) and refugee backgrounds over the past decade with a view to assessing key relationships including exposure to adversity and wellbeing. In working with students from refugee and migrant backgrounds, it was evident that they are generally well-adjusted and performing well in school, yet this cohort can experience certain challenges. For example, students from refugee and migrant backgrounds can be up to five times more likely to drop out of school than others (Wong, Schweitzer & Khawaja, 2018).

More recently, the team has engage with participatory action research including the adoption of digital technologies as a means of understanding themes and developing and implementing programs aimed at enhancing community outcomes. The objective of the research with Milpera School was to identify key factors for creating socially inclusive classrooms for students from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

Quantitative data collected included psychosocial, cognitive and academic data. Follow up data was collected at 12 and 24 months from mainstream destination schools.

Digital storytelling workshops were facilitated with teachers, parents and students as a means of identifying and expressing what works at Milpera State High School. The study led to the identification of three key strategies for: supporting students to adapt to new environment; foster supportive social relationships between members of the school community; and fostering student’s sense of belonging and connection to the school.

A Booklet and PowerPoint presentation was designed to demonstrate to school teachers and staff members how these strategies are implemented at Milpera State High School; further, it included a series of prompts and activities to guide educators to consider their own expertise and experiences and identify strategies that could be beneficial within their own school environments.

Impact on School Community

To date, workshops privileging the voices of the participants, have been presented on the strategies developed, to over 20 key influencers of school environments (predominantly School Principals) in Brisbane.