Special Events
Wear it Yellow Day
Winter might be upon us but last Friday our school grounds shone so brightly with many of our staff and students wearing a touch of yellow…or if you’re our Principal, fully transform your hair colour!
Wear it Yellow Day is hosted by Children’s Ground, an organisation that seeks to increase educational and health outcomes for Indigenous people in Australia. While learning about Indigenous history, culture and traditions is embedded into our curriculum across many year levels, awareness days such as this one are an awesome opportunity to engage in this as a whole school community. We are very proud that together we raised $675. A special shout out goes to SPG who raised over $100 as a single class. It is so wonderful to see young students so passionate about supporting the marginalised in our society!
As a part of Wear it Yellow Day, we had a Whole School Assembly with a particular focus on reconciliation. Our Primary School Leaders, Gabi & Amelie, had the opportunity to share about how Indigenous perspectives are woven into their learning in Senior Primary. They shared about how they recently visited the Royal Botanic Gardens on Wurundjeri Country which prompted some questions that they shared with us all,
- “Why is the land so intrinsic to our First Nations People?
- How were Indigenous people stewards of our Earth, and how can we continue to learn from them?”
Gabi & Amelie also shared about how students then selected a chosen area of Indigenous history to research and become ‘experts’ on before sharing their knowledge with the class, which is what is known as the jigsaw approach to learning. Students could select from traditional practices like cool burning, the Frontier Wars, Stolen Generation, the Tent embassy, the right to vote and Kevin Rudd’s Sorry Speech. Seeing how passionate & articulate these leaders were, is such a wonderful indication of the leaders they will become in the future!
Our Faith Leadership Team (FLT) also took the opportunity to host one of their regular Prayer Breakfasts, where Secondary students can come and get some pancakes, submit prayer requests, and join in a time of prayer. They made the pancakes bright yellow to add to the joy of the day and spent some time in prayer for Indigenous reconciliation.
While not closely linked to the Wear it Yellow day activities, our Staff vs. Year 12 students annual basketball match took place at lunch which added to the community spirit of the day. It is always a joy to see our staff and students connect outside of the classroom and is a real testament to the community our school nurtures. While our staff team consisted of 5 members, it was boosted by the contribution of some Year 10s. The Year 12 team was on high rotation as many students across the year level participated. Ultimately, our teachers claimed the victory!
Grace Sketcher
Teaching & Learning Executive Assistant, VASS, VCE Exam & Marketing Coordinator