Aust ral ia has witn ess ed a significant shift away from government schooling towards the non-government sector in the past two decades. This trend is especially pronounced when students move to secondary schools, with more than 40 per cent of Australian school students currently enrolled in either Catholic or Independent schools (Forsey 2008). Reflecting these realities in some small ways, Karratha has two secondary schools, a government high school spread across two campuses and St Luke’s Catholic College, a school with some 400 enrolments.