Top End Group School, NT Australia

GOCHAN JINY-JIRRA SCHOOL

Welcome to our School!

Gochan Jiny Jirra is a one-teacher school located 40 km from Maningrida in Central Arnhemland. It is 550 km by road from Darwin. The road is closed during the wet season, generally from December to May. It is located very close to the Cadell River with beautiful river views, great fishing and lots of wildlife, especially salt-water crocodiles.

People who live at Gochan Jiny Jirra visit Maningrida regularly to pick up food supplies, fuel, do banking, and visit the health centre. Located on the mouth of the Liverpool River, it is one of the largest remote towns in the NT and has two regular flights to Darwin daily and a barge twice a week.

Gochan Jiny Jirra School opened in the 1970s when market gardens were fully operational. In those days the school was conducted in a silver bullet caravan. The teacher lived in a similar construction. Today the school is a modern, well-equipped building with beautifully designed external toilets and its own power supply. The teacher’s residence is a 2 bedroom, fully furnished house with 24-hour power, telephone and Internet access.

Gochan Jiny Jirra remains a very basic community infrastructure-wise and does not have 24-hour power, a shop or health clinic. The teacher is the only non-Indigenous person living in the community.

The students mainly speak Anaburra as well as other Indigenous languages. English is not spoken in the home, so the classroom program focuses on English as a Second Language (ESL) methodology.

The community members are still very strongly involved in seasonal and cyclic ceremonial obligations that can result in the students being absent from school at various times throughout the year. This provides the teacher with additional challenges in providing a quality yet flexible learning sequences.

The students join in with Maningrida School for activities such as Skin Sports, Back to Country camps as well as joining in the Top End Group School Festival held each year.

Location
Gochan Jiny-Jirra is located approximately 40 kms South of Maningrida.
Click on the map below to see exactly where we are in the NT!