Level 2, NAB Building
71 Smith Street
Darwin NT 0801
Independent Schools are located across the Northern Territory, including regional Darwin, remote Alice Springs and in several very remote communities across the Top End and Central Australia.
Independent schools exhibit diversity in terms of the communities they cater to, the composition of their student body, their size, and their educational approach. This diversity has consistently been regarded as a significant asset of the Australian education system, effectively addressing the requirements of a geographically scattered, socially heterogeneous, culturally diverse, and multi-faith populace.
These schools encompass a wide range of options, including community schools designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote regions, specialized educational environments for at-risk youth and students with disabilities, boarding schools serving students from regional and remote areas, as well as both large and small multicultural schools situated in urban and regional settings. In essence, the Independent schooling sector offers a comprehensive selection to accommodate the preferences and needs of all families.

Independent schools deliver an education that nurtures resilient young individuals equipped with the values, skills, and abilities necessary for thriving. They maintain strong connections with their communities, and their autonomy empowers them to innovate and adapt to the evolving demands of students and society.
George Otero Relational Leadership Centre, New Mexico (2017)
Educational Qualifications
The Territory is diverse, all young people are different, and this is reflected in our Independent Schools.
There are currently ten Aboriginal Independent Community Schools (AICS) in the Northern Territory. These schools are located in remote and very remote communities throughout the Northern Territory. This include Pickertaramoor, on Melville Island Tiwi, West Arnhem Land, East Arnhem Land, Mutitjulu, Docker River and Imanpa.
The schools are autonomous and do not operate as part of a system. Each Aboriginal Independent Community School has an Aboriginal governing body responsible for staffing, curriculum, school buildings, staff houses and financial accountability. Notwithstanding their obligations to comply with the Education Act (NT) 2015 and national education policy initiatives, these schools are independent of government and belong to the communities they service.
Success in Aboriginal Independent Community Schools is due to their capacity to deliver mainstream education in an environment where learning is nurtured by cultural identity, traditional language and a sense of belonging to place. This has led to improved literacy and numeracy results for students in these schools. Community wellbeing and social functioning is also an important product of these schools.
The Aboriginal Independent Community Schools in the Northern Territory are:
NT Christian Schools is an Independent School system that has been delivering high quality, Christ-centered education in a wide variety of contexts in the Northern Territory since 1977.
As a distinctive organisation, it seeks to serve God through contextualised education, training and care from a Biblical perspective for all students.
There are seven Christian Schools in the Northern Territory:
Uniting Church Northern Synod
The Uniting Church in Australia Northern Synod is associated with St Philip's College which provides a co-educational Boarding and Day school within Alice Springs for students in years 7 -12.
Lutheran Education is a national system that enables, encourages and supports their schools to thrive in providing quality Lutheran Education. There are three Northern Territory Independent Schools belonging to the Lutheran Church of Australia , affiliated with Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA.
In 2022, the Australian International Islamic College opened a campus in Darwin making it the first Islamic School in the Northern Territory.
The college strives to pursue academic excellence through integrating Australian and Islamic curriculum, supporting students in learning about Islamic tradition helping to shapes values, faith and identity, and the valuing of diversity and multiculturalism.
In Islamic pedagogy, knowledge is balanced by spiritual, social and ethical teachings from the Quran.
'Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility - these three forces are the very nerve of education' - Rudolf Steiner
Steiner schools have a unique and distinctive approach to educating children, aiming to enable each stage of growth to be fully and vividly enjoyed and experienced. They provide a balanced approach to the modern school curriculum. The academic, artistic and social aspects, or 'head, heart and hands' are treated as complementary facets of a single program of learning, allowing each to throw light on the others. This is implemented by using art as a practice, and language to develop the feelings, by nourishing the children with the rich heritage of wise folk tales, histories, fairy stories, poems, music and games that are part of the world civilisation. This creates the cultural atmosphere in which the children are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, nature study, geography, science, languages, music and other subjects.
Steiner designed a curriculum that is responsive to the developmental phases of childhood and the nurturing of the child’s imagination in a school environment. Steiner held that schools should cater to the needs of the child rather than the demands of the government or economic forces, so he developed schools that encourage creativity and free-thinking. His teaching seeks to recognise the individuality of the child and through a balanced education, allows them to go into the world with confidence.
Steiner Education is a deeply insightful application of learning based on the Study of Humanity that helps develop consciousness of self and the surrounding world. Steiner’s perception that although external conditions in our time are changing as never before, the essential nature of humanity remains; in particular, the stages of human development through childhood follow a natural pattern unaffected by short term social change. The task of educators remains to prepare children for an unpredictable future by nurturing healthy development ‘from the inside’, to provide the right nourishment at each stage of physical, emotional and spiritual growth.
There are two Steiner Schools in the Northern Territory:
SEDA offers students a holistic approach where each student can identify a career goal and are supported in gaining the relevent skills to achieve that goal. SEDA values student wellbeing, teachers engage with and monitor the students overall wellbeing working with them closely across the three years of senior secondary schooling. SEDA has strong relations with peak industry organisations that provide students with the opportunity to gain industry experience.
Haileybury Rendall School opened in Darwin in 2018 and is part of Haileybury which has four campuses in Victoria and one in China.
The Essington School is a parent owned, non-denominational, co-educational school.
Level 2, NAB Building
71 Smith Street
Darwin NT 0800
All Rights Reserved | Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory
AISNT acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Larrakia country, where we are privileged to live, learn and work. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout the Northern Territory on which our schools are located. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples