Only a few years ago, 11 year-old Waisie Miller's perfect attendance at Palm Island's Bwgcolman Community School would have been rare.
Now she's won the ultimate race in a four-year-old program by Olympian Cathy Freeman's foundation to get Indigenous children from four poor and remote communities to school more often.
Ms Miller is one of 15 primary-aged children from four remote and Indigenous communities in Queensland and the Northern Territory – most of whom have never left home before – whose excellent attendance was rewarded with a Horizons trip to the big smoke, Sydney.
"I worked really hard on my attendance, my literacy and behaving," Ms Miller said on Tuesday while she visiting Bondi's Iceberg Club.
"Most kids don't come very often," she says of attendance by classmates of her age. "They just run around in the community, riding horses." The attendance rate at her school was 68 per cent last year.
Waisie's new friend, Faith Stevens, 11, was rewarded for "great attendance and being a good helper and I'm always good, I guess." She attends Shepherdson College in Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island in north east Arnhem Land, where attendance in 2014 was 61 per cent.
On Palm Island, where the program has been running for seven years, the number of children attending school more than 90 per cent (the benchmark for the program) has risen 12 per cent in the past year. Following this success, the program has expanded into three other communities in the past year, reaching 1600 children. At Murrupurtiyanuwu Catholic Primary School on Bathurst Island, the program is only two school terms old, yet it has more than doubled the number of children exceeding the benchmark.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children's attendance averages 85 per cent, compared with 93 per cent by non-Indigenous children, according to the 2011 Census.
To bridge this gap, every day in the four schools in the program starts with recording attendance, behaviour and literacy on a "big, highly visible Cathy Freeman chart", said Acting CEO Jamie Howden. As children reach each benchmark, they are rewarded with sporting equipment, books and awards – with the trip to Sydney the biggest reward.
To get parents more involved, awards are given at a community award. "It is quite significant to acknowledge the students in front of the community." he said.
In Bondi on Tuesday, the children were urged to finish year 12 by former league footballer, Ricky Walford. Earlier they had met with Aboriginal mentors, while later this week they will meet with Indigenous dancers, journalists, sportsmen and woman.
Ms Stevens said she was excited and scared to be in Sydney. "It is first time in a big city."
Her goal was now to finish university and then compete like Cathy Freeman.
"I wish I could be just like her when I grow up," she said.
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