Warriappendi Secondary School
Government school, Marleston, South Australia
Warriappendi Secondary School, founded as Moore Street Alternative School and renamed Warriappendi School in 1983, is a secondary school for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in western Adelaide, South Australia. Established in the early to mid 1980s by community members Leila Rankine and her sister Veronica Brodie, the school has undergone several moves. It opened its new building in Thebarton on 3 November 2025, at which time there are around 80 students enrolled. There is space for growth, to accommodate up to 150 students.
History
In the 1960s and 1970s, teachers and parents found that mainstream South Australian schools were not suitable for all children, especially a large group of Aboriginal children who lived in the south-eastern corner of Adelaide city centre. Leila Rankine (1992–1993) and her sister Veronica Brodie (1941–2007) are regarded as the founders of the school as it was by their efforts that it was established. They also contributed to its ongoing development through subsequent moves.
The Department of Education rented a room from the Church of England in Moore street, at the location of the St Mary Magdalene's Church, which was called the South-East Corner School for a while. In mid-1980, a new school, the Moore Street Alternative School, was established on the site. This was a co-educational secondary school for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students who were not doing well in mainstream schools.
“Warriappendi Secondary School” enters the record as government school, Marleston, South Australia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Warriappendi, Secondary and School can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Warriappendi Secondary School” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Warriappendi, Secondary and School provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q101435963. Authority coordinates are -34.943, 138.571. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1983, 2025, 1992 and 1993.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Warriappendi Secondary School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.