Concord Connect

Teaching and Learning

Curriculum Day

Last Monday we had a Curriculum Day with our entire teaching and education support team participating in Cultural Understanding and Safety Training (CUST). CUST training is being provided to all government schools in Victoria as part of Marrung: Aboriginal Education Plan 2016-2026 – a ten-year plan to support improved outcomes for Koorie learners across all education settings. Participants gain an understanding of Aboriginal culture, the importance of equity and inclusion in educational practice and what schools can do to provide a culturally safe learning environment for Koorie students. The training was provided to us by the Koorie Engagement Support Officers (KESO) for the Banyule, Whittlesea and Nillumbik areas.

Topics covered included:

  • Welcome to Country/Acknowledgement of Country
  • history – pre colonisation and post colonisation
  • local community today
  • inclusion and reflective practice
  • Aboriginal perspectives in the Victorian curriculum
  • local context.

Part of the day was spent reflecting on our current practices at Concord including how we include and acknowledge Aboriginal history and perspectives in our curriculum and how we can improve the culturally safe learning environment for our Koorie students. As a school we are currently planning how we will celebrate NAIDOC week in the first week of Term 3. NAIDOC week falls in the second week of the school holidays. The theme this year is Voice. Treaty. Truth. We will be using the resources available to schools via the NAIDOC website as well as resources provided to the school by SBS and ABC Education Online. If there are any members of the Concord community who would like to support the school in planning for our involvement in NAIDOC week, please get in contact with me ASAP.

 

Supporting Learning at Home

Supporting Literacy at home

Discuss the words Voice, Treaty and Truth. What do they mean and why would they be used at the theme for NAIDOC week? Encourage your child to read over the holidays and ask them questions about what they are reading. Who are the main characters, what is happening, what do they think will happen next.

 

Supporting Numeracy at home

Next term classes will be working with money. Tune your child into money over the holidays by doing things like talking about the value of coins and notes, adding money amounts or calculating change.

 

Our final newsletter this term will include highlights from all of our sections across the school, so I will take this opportunity to wish everybody a safe and happy holiday.

 

Acting Assistant Principal 

Sam Birrell