River Nile School

We empower young refugee and asylum seeker women through education to acquire the language, life and work skills to thrive. At River Nile School (RNS) we change students’ lives using specialist English as an Additional Language, real life, applied-learning pedagogy. Our team take on a mentoring approach, supporting the individual journey of students, developing their confidence, supporting them to resolve complex challenges and trauma ever present in their lives and building respectful relationships which strengthen their outcomes. Each student is supported to develop a career pathway plan, specific to their goals and supported to realise this plan as they transition from our school. All services are free as our students are among the most disadvantaged in the community. RNS is an ACNC registered Charitable organisation, endorsed by the ATO for charity tax concessions and as a Deductible Gift Recipient. BACKGROUND RNS grew out of the River Nile Learning Centre (RNLC), which was established in 2006 to assist the African refugee community. It commenced with after-hours tutorials in a hall in Footscray. From 2008 to 2016 our VCAL program was delivered through a DET Partnership with Mount Alexander College, however a key challenge was this only covered 1.7 FTE teachers’ salaries and never core operating costs. The opportunity to address this challenge by becoming an Independent School, so it could become self sufficient to meet the demand for its service was identified and led by the RNLC Director and now RNS Foundation Principal, Lisa Wilson and Secretary and Treasurer and Welfare Director, John O’Shea, supported by our teaching team and Board. Our goal was realized in December 2016 when the VRQA (Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority) granted registration of the River Nile School Inc as a senior secondary, specialist, single sex (girls only) school with VCAA approval to deliver Foundation, Intermediate and Senior VCAL curriculum.