18 Jul 2012
At the end of Term 2 our school community eagerly celebrated NAIDOC Week 2012, with a focus on the Spirit of the Tent Embassy, 40 years on. Our staff and students always look forward to these festivities and the success of the week was due to the input, ideas and support put forward by our Aboriginal Community and particularly members of our Yarn Up group who joined us for activities and classroom visits throughout the week.
Our eye-catching chalk mural was coordinated by one of our fathers, Dale Elliot, who mentored a group of our Aboriginal students by encouraging them to put forward and express their own ideas and stories in this artform. Dale also kindly displayed some of his beautifully decorated didges in our office area and played the didge at our Opening Ceremony. Another of our fathers, Christian Lugnan, presented the Welcome to Country at our Opening Ceremony and spoke about the importance of the Tent Embassy. In their classrooms, our students also learnt much about the establishment of, and the significance of, this powerful symbol of unity for Aboriginal people.
Students in our Opportunity Class, 5/6C, were fortunate to have Jayden's father, Rob Waters, visit and happily answer any questions that the students put forward regarding Aboriginal Culture.
Linda Whitton, who has many children attending our school, visited classrooms showing a DVD and speaking about the footage of her great-grandfather carving a canoe out of a tree which still stands today at Toomelah in Northern NSW. Mark Heward also visited his children's classrooms to read and discuss a book about the Rainbow Serpent. As always, we were joined by many families who turned up to help out with Thursday's sausage sizzle. Thank you to all those who helped out during the week!
The highlight of our celebrations was definitely Monday's visit by the Gomeroi Dance Company and their performance at our Opening Ceremony. The dancer's were joined by their nephew Jayden, our School Captain, and both staff and students loved seeing this student learning and performing ancient dances passed down from his traditional people.