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A collaborative research and practice project investigating and implementing new ways to support schools to provide equitable, quality and authentic schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

A collaborative research and practice project investigating and implementing new ways to support schools to provide equitable, quality and authentic schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Mission Statement

CNS are committed to fostering long-term relationships between schools and their local communities to create culturally nourishing schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Using professional learning strategies backed by our research, we support whole-of-school change by helping educators rethink their approach to teaching while empowering schools to lead their own learning. Our overarching aim is to facilitate sustainable, community-driven education shaped by student aspirations.

Who is CNS?

We are a collective of researchers from a wide number of Australian universities working in partnership with chosen schools and their local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to improve teachers’ understandings and professional practices of authentic and “culturally nourishing” practices including curriculum implementation and teaching. We explore strategies that schools and teachers can use to foster cultural inclusion in learning, and better meet the needs and aspirations of students and their local communities and families.

Through simultaneous and iterative research and practice, we support schools and communities to co-design curricula, teaching practices and school environments that foster strong and healthy identities for students and instill confidence in teaching staff to provide authentic material relevant to their local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners.

What we do and why

Culturally Nourishing Schooling is investigating the practices of teachers, schools, their leadership and the professional learning that can transform schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Our collective aim is to establish a “whole-of-school" approach to pedagogy that provides learning and development for teachers, and ongoing professional resources to ensure they are confident and supported in their practice.

But most importantly, we aim to help develop a sustainable framework that will ensure long-term, respected collaboration between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and their community leaders, and the schools.

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Our model / How we do it

Our “whole of school” model is a responsive research-informed framework based on the collection and evaluation of large-scale quantitative data from teachers about their experiences and broad-scope qualitative data collected from teachers, principals, community members, Elders, and other support staff.

This framework rests on four research informed pillars (Lowe et al., 2020):

Learning on and with Country
Cultural Inclusion
Cultural Mentoring
Professional Change in Teaching

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How we're different

The CNS project has three major points of difference to other programs initiated by school systems:

We place emphasis on the need for long-term engagement and collaboration between school leaders, teachers, families and their communities to all become allies in students’ education.
We take a localised approach to schooling, co-creating and implementing with each schools’ local community, their connections to Country, local knowledges, histories and experiences.
Our project and its outcomes will create a new body of research to counter current practices of teaching and curriculum implementation to support that change with teachers and school leaders.

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Our Timeline

Hear from our lead professor Kevin Lowe

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Our Impact

Our Strategies

Our Research

Acknowledgement of Country

Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) acknowledges the Traditional Owners throughout Australia and their continuing connection to Country and Community.

We pay our respects to Elders past and present and recognise their contribution to this land, to Indigenous education and Australian society.

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia.
When the terms Aboriginal or Indigenous are used on this website, it refers to the First Peoples of Australia.
We acknowledge that these terms arose within colonial circumstances.