Educational services for Sydney's inner city Indigenous community are being boosted thanks to a new collaborative partnership between the Alexandria Park Community School (APCS) and the University of Technology, Sydney.

The relationship between the school, which caters for a predominantly Indigenous student population, and the UTS Faculty of Education and Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning was formalised on 17 June when NSW Minister for Education and Training Dr Andrew Refshauge and UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Booth signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

UTS has already established professional links with the staff of the school and more recently the Telstra Foundation has funded a project to establish a learning centre within the campus.

The prime aim of the partnership is to foster a culture of learning among students, parents and the community to secure better long-term educational outcomes for students. The project brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics at UTS, school staff, parents and elders.

"The APCS system of schooling for Indigenous students and its partnership with Jumbunna and the Faculty of Education are quite unique in Australia," said Heidi Norman from the Jumbunna IHL.

"APCS is a preschool to year 12 school, but its reach is wider than the students - it also includes their families and community. The Telstra Foundation project will result in literacy, numeracy and other programs for parents and other adult members of the Indigenous community being offered through the school.

"The school is committed to providing education from an Indigenous perspective and to promoting lifelong learning. Students learn an Indigenous language as part of their studies."

Ms Norman said academics from the Faculty of Education had been working with APCS staff on the development of a 'middle schooling' approach to the curriculum, which has been shown to produce better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. She said several other initiatives were already underway.

"APCS is one of three schools chosen to pilot a YWCA-funded project that aims to support parents in disadvantaged communities whose children are studying a new financial literacy program," Ms Norman said.

"Journalism staff from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences have established a program that will link up UTS Journalism students with APCS students to produce a regular section of the newspaper Tungarre News.

"The APCS partnership also offers opportunities for UTS student teachers, particularly Indigenous student teachers in both school and adult education, to undertake their practicum placement in the school.

"In fact, there's the potential for all the UTS faculties to develop initiatives and programs to work closely with the Redfern and inner-city communities to improve their educational and life opportunities."

Ms Norman said the partnership had emerged from efforts by Jennifer Newman and Jacquie Widin of the Faculty of Education to save the old Cleveland Street High School in Redfern. The vision for the Alexandria Park project had been developed over two years with the help of Jumbunna and a Faculty of Education team led by Ms Widin and Keiko Yasukawa.