The Story of Our Mural

The mural represents the adversity that the students, the school community and families had overcome during the past two years of experiencing the social and emotional rollercoaster of being isolated. The imagery on the painted tiles were from students who experienced a lot of anxiety and found it a challenge to express their emotions in a positive way. These students also had an artistic flair and needed an outlet to express their feelings through art. The process of creating the mural was a way for these students to express their inner feelings. It also gave them hope, something to look forward to and a sense of anticipation in visualising what the final mural would look like.

Each tile shows the authenticity of how students felt at that moment in time. The mosaic embraces the imagery on the tiles reflecting the surrounding school environment and school colours. The birds symbolise connection/family/love and respect in our school community. The gum tree branches and leaves represent continual growth in our learning as a school community. The wavy lines are both expression of the land and our feelings throughout the year.

The tiles on the mural are authentically the students work. Here’s how our values are shown

Teamwork: 

• Students worked as a team to create the mural. They helped each other and problem solved together on how to place the broken tiled pieces together to create the mosaic.
• Gave students some positivity – something to look forward to when coming to school.
• It bought them together to collaborate.

Learner:

• Students used their knowledge and skills to help others to come up with ideas for the illustrations of their tiles. They learned how to express their emotions through creativity and represent it on the tiles. 

Leadership: 

• Students showed leadership through helping other students and being able to empathise with each other when talking about their emotions on their artwork.
• Students showed organisational skills and took responsibility in creating their own artwork.
• They inspired each other with their artworks.

Respect: 

• Students respected each other’s artworks by accepting that everyone’s emotions are expressed differently to theirs. 
• Students took pride in their artwork as it was their own and knowing that they were contributing to the school building and environment. 

Resilience: 

• The process of creating the mosaic helped students overcome their adversity and become more confident in expressing their emotions. 
• They learned resilience through perseverance and positive encouragement from their peers through the process of creating their tiled artworks.