At a time when the Howard Government is pressuring government schools to return to teaching the basics of Australian history, the school has drafted plans for the subject to be taught to Year 8 from 2008, with the primary aim of raising "cultural awareness and knowledge".

A draft plan says that "as a member and participant of the Australian community, students need to develop an understanding and appreciation of the indigenous culture that preceded white occupation".

The unprecedented compulsory course would examine pre-colonial and post-colonial indigenous history and look at how indigenous people were portrayed. It would be additional to Australian history, which is compulsory at the school in Years 9 and 10.

Principal Rick Tudor said it was intended that every student at the school would at some stage do a consolidated unit of indigenous studies.

Asked why the school was introducing a compulsory indigenous unit, he said: "These kids here, when you look at where they will go later on, a lot will be lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects, teachers, a lot do commercial subjects ... and my hope would be that the decisions that they are making as professionals encompass their understanding of indigenous people.

"My hope is that the right sort of decisions are made in terms of indigenous Australians and it is not just swept under the carpet, or pushed to one side as being too hard.

"It is my hope that these kids will really embrace the bigger issues that come to them, that will be there in terms of indigenous people in Australia. Those issues will be with us for a long, long time and we've got to make sure we get the decision-making as right as we can.

"There are a whole lot of things that happened in the past that maybe weren't ideal, but I really think there is a wave in Australia where young people are starting to - through the education system - embrace, and talk about the real issues that are going to confront us in the next 50 years in terms of indigenous people.

"I think we are seeing the development of a wave throughout Australia, of awareness and the educational community now prepared to stand up and say we want this as part of our schooling for young people. I think it is a terrifically positive time."

Trinity already offers indigenous studies as Year 9 and 10 electives. In common with leading private schools nationally, it also has an established indigenous scholarship program. It has an exchange program with a remote Aboriginal community in South Australia and is planning a second exchange program in Arnhem Land.

Mr Tudor, who recently spent time with Aboriginal people at Oenpelli and neighbouring communities in Arnhem Land, also entered the argument over whether people should be encouraged to move away from remote outstations deemed to be unsustainable, saying it was obvious to him that such communities had "real value".

Rather than closing them and drawing people back into larger communities, he thought good teachers should spend longer periods at outstations where Aboriginal people seemed happier. He said the outstations near Oenpelli appeared to him to be "a great innovation" that allowed people to "stand tall" on their own country.