Kindergarten

Kindergarten students recently learnt about the local Aboriginal Dreaming story of the Creation of Trowenna. Trowenna means Tasmania in the South East dialect. Aboriginal Student Success Teacher, Ms Anne-Marie McWatters read the story to the children, who then acted it out with props. With handfuls of ice, students re-created the ice age, sprinkled seeds and imagined the great gum trees growing. The lessons took place in our outdoor learning area, specially created for Aboriginal education.

7A Religious education

This term students in Year 7 are studying a unit on ‘Creation’ in Religious Education. As part of this unit, students in 7A were fortunate to have Uncle Rodney Dillon introduce this unit to us through the lens of Aboriginal spirituality and we were lucky enough to have him share with us the Whale Dreaming story – a creation story from lutruwita (Tasmania).  

In our second lesson, Jesse Frost read us the story called ‘The creation of trowenna’ and elaborated on local language and additional parts of story with us. Ms McWatters also visited us and shared her knowledge and experiences of Aboriginal spirituality – as can be seen from all the learning on the whiteboard!

NAIDOC Week Prayer spaces and Mass

During NAIDOC week, the Middle Campus Chapel provided the perfect home for our series of NAIDOC week prayer stations. These interactive prayer spaces involved prayers of thanks for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, arts and language as well as acknowledging, as Pope Francis has, the deep and respectful ways indigenous peoples connect and care for land and the environment. This environment was a place of peace and consideration and was enjoyed by students during their Religion lessons as well as being open for ‘drop in’ at recess time.

Following Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday, a NAIDOC Week Mass was held at the Junior Campus led by our Aboriginal Students following the Gospel theme “The harvest is plenty but the labourers are few”. This was a beautiful Mass which recognised the rich beauty of Aboriginal Catholic Spirituality.