Smoking Ceremony & Welcome to Country 

Dear St Joseph's Families and friends,

Our names are Mabel, Jack, Livia, Brendan, Seraphine, Harrison and Angus. We are the Year Six Leaders working with Mrs Harrison in the Smoking Ceremony Group. As part of our role, we are learning about these ceremonies and a Welcome to Country. In the lead up to the ceremony, we will visit all the classrooms across the school to teach the students about the tradition and what to expect on the day.

We would like to formally invite you to the St Joseph’s Smoking Ceremony and Acknowledgement of Country.  

Our school will be participating in the ceremony instead of an assembly in Week 7. The Ceremony will be run by an Elder from Bunurong Country and will take place on the 15th of March at 9:00am.

At a smoking ceremony, an Aboriginal Elder burns various native plants to produce smoke. That smoke is used to clean the people and land of bad and evil spirits.

An Acknowledgement of Country allows any person to pay their respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which they meet, and all indigenous people, but a Welcome to Country means a local aboriginal person (usually an elder) performs a ceremony to give the people consent to enter their land.

We are very lucky to have the opportunity to experience this together as a school community and we hope to see you all there!