ATSI NEWS

What a busy year! Here are a few highlights.

Tucker Trail Project 

The Tucker Trail and Indigenous plant area was opened at the 50th Birthday Celebration on Saturday 3rd June. Destiny, Lilly and Kahlani helped Mrs Dunn share information about the progress of the project during the speeches. (See the speech below)

The Tucker Trail Project started in September 2022 to research and plan a Tucker Trail and indigenous plant area as an extension to the new Nature Playground. Uncle Tamaru, a Kaurna elder, worked with 42 students, ranging from year 1-6. He taught the students about plants that are indigenous to our area and how the Kaurna people might have used them. This was the start of an ongoing project to research and plan a Tucker Trail and indigenous plant area. In October, we received a grant from Green Adelaide, which enabled us to fast track the project and started the planting this term. Destiny, Lilly and Kalani have more information about the project.

Last year in term 4 a group of students were part of a focus group to research about native plants to grow in a Tucker Trail Garden next to the new nature playground. Some of the plants will be bush tucker and some plants were chosen to attract birds, butterflies and wildlife. Trent Hill, an indigenous plant expert from the Botanical Gardens, came to school to teach us about native plants and their uses.

The plants were chosen from our research. Ms Dowd, Ms Gossink and Ms Hazelwood’s R/1 classes, Mrs Jolly and Madame Mawson’s 3/ 4 class and Ms Wood/Ms Esposito’s year 4/ 5 class planted plants in week 2 this term and are caring for the plants. 

Another part of the project is a survey. Students in Mrs Jolley and Madam Mawson’s class have been going to the Tucker Trail Garden each day to count the number of birds, butterflies, bees and other insects in the garden. Some of the plants were chosen to attract wildlife.

They will be surveying the garden for the rest of the year to see if there is more wildlife in the garden as the plants grow.

More plants were planted in term 4 and it will be exciting to watch the plants grow.

Check in future newsletters for more information about the Tucker Trail and Garden. Thank you to Green Adelaide for the grant. https://www.greenadelaide.sa.gov.au/

Reconciliation Week 27th May - 3rd June

 26th May Friday – Sorry Day

The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2023, Be a Voice for Generations, encourages all Australians to be a voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives – where we live, work and socialise.

Majeda Beatty performed on the Wednesday of Reconciliation Week. She shared Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures through song, dance, stories and language, with a high level of student participation. Majeda presented and demonstrated various instruments, artifacts and costumes specific to each culture as well as the importance of ochre and the significance of the body paint designs in Aboriginal culture. 

Comments about the performance:

Ms Sally - I thought it was fantastic, she was really engaging and it suited a wide range of year levels. Her cultural messages were sensitive and inclusive for all participants.

Ms Martyne - It was really engaging and fun. As an adult I enjoyed learning the moves and the story behind the songs.

Daniella – I think it really nice to learn about other people’s cultures.

It was inspiring. We all really enjoyed it.

Savannah - I liked when she put white ochre on my face.

Damian - I enjoyed participating in the dancing. It was lots of fun.

Jaxon - It was nice of her to come visit us.

Alex - Really good. I liked the perspectives of our First Nations people.

Clare - The instruments and different language were interesting to know.

Caleb - I liked the bamboo drum and that we learnt lots of different facts.

Year 6s - Great student participation/involvement. Great to have language included. Encouraged students to have- a go and be part of the dance. Great energy. Very enjoyable.

Drawing Us Together Community Story Project

Charter Hall sponsored the Drawing Us Together illustration competition to celebrate NAIDOC Week at Southgate Square. Bianca Stawiarski, an Indigenous author, wrote a children’s story book titled Gami Winda and Dyindi-Dyrindi, a modern story based around the inheritance of our identity. Mrs Thiele, Mrs Dunn and Phoebe worked with the students on the artwork. 

We had 23 students whose art was part of the display at Southgate and the public voted on them. All the finalists’ artwork is displayed in the front of the book and four students’ artwork was used in the book. They were Archie Coakley, Max Wade, Augy Collinson and Eva Beens.

NAIDOC Week

Sun, 2 July 2023 – Sun, 9 July 2023

The 2023 National NAIDOC Week theme was For Our Elders. Across every generation, our Elders have played, and continue to play, an important role and hold a prominent place in our communities and families. A contemporary Aboriginal artist, Mali Isabel, worked with several classes to celebrate NAIDOC Week. Her art uses bold and bright colours. Check out her Facebook Page to see her work, https://www.maliisabelart.com/

We have some budding artists, and you can see some examples of their art below.

Term 3

2023 STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress 

The STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress is an exciting annual 2-day event for Aboriginal learners in Years 5 – 10, who attend a South Australian Department for Education school. The congress is a South Australian Department for Education initiative to engage and inspire the next generation of young Aboriginal scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. The congress connects Aboriginal learners to STEM through a range of interactive and challenging STEM experiences designed to demonstrate that Aboriginal learners are powerful STEM learners and lead thinkers. Two Year 6 students represented our school. They listened to speakers on STEM topics and participated in 3 workshops. Their favourite one was learning how to recognise different animals by their tracks and their ‘poo’. They then used clay to make examples of it. They also went to the Adelaide Botanical Gardens to meet Trent Hill, who spoke about different artefacts, then took us around the gardens to look at trees and shrubs and told us how the Kaurna people used them. 

Thukeri Dance Workshop

ATSI students in Year 1-5 and the Primary Special Class attended a workshop about the Dreaming story Thukeri.  Sonya Rankine, an Aboriginal artist, told the students the story, then taught them movements to tell the story to music. Everyone had a great time and they were excellent representatives for out school. Check out the pictures below.

Nunga Tag

The annual Nunga Tag Carnival is the biggest Aboriginal community event in Southern Adelaide. The event has been running for the last 10 years and it continues to grow with the strong support of the community. It is a Rugby Tag carnival for ATSI students in Years 4 - 6. On Wednesday 27th September, we had a team of 6 students. The students enjoyed the games and played against Christies Downs P.S., Port Noarlunga P.S., McLaren Vale and Moana P.S. The students were excellent representatives of the school and their skills got better with every game, scoring several tries. They showed the values of the school and had a great time.

Term 4

Kids on Country

In week 3 our Year 3-6 indigenous students were invited to attend Kids On Country in the Adelaide Parklands which is organised by the Adelaide City Council. Kids on Country is an interactive educational event for students to learn about Kaurna Culture and caring for Country and to walk on Country. Our students made seed bombs, painted boomerangs, participated in boomerang throwing, created paintings using symbols and their favourite activity was the Animals Anonymous. They learned information about different native animals such as a goanna, wombat, tawny frogmouth and were able to pat a baby crocodile and hold a very long python.

What a busy year we had! It is always a pleasure to take our students on excursions and they are excellent representatives for our school.