Specialist

Engaging With Place (EWP) News

Hello there St Gabriel’s Primary School Community! 

I was lucky enough to join the St Gabriel’s team in Term 3 as the new Engaging with Place teacher. Each day I learnt more and more about how wonderfully inspiring your school community is. The leadership Haley, our past EWP teacher, has shown by developing such an important program is inspiring and I know I have huge shoes to fill! 

Excitingly, at the beginning of this term, our Prep and Year 1/ 2  hubs will be part of our compost system in a very important way. We will be collecting their fruit and vegetable scraps with the help of our sustainability leaders Grace and Alyssa from year 5/6.  By engaging with the compost cycle in this way our youngest learners will have a front row seat to witness real world scientific transformations. They will also be assisting with building a healthy school soil, while limiting our school’s greenhouse gas emissions. This process instills in students that we are never too small to make a difference!

The start of term coincides with National Wildlife Week, where 3/4 students will investigate the cultural significance of totems through their past work with artist Emma Stenhouse. They will learn how traditional Wurundjeri language and local names, like our class names Waa and Tadjeri, guide conservation efforts in our local environment. Students will then develop detailed environmental profiles for both Waa and Tadjeri, exploring the interconnected web of life and committing to practical, everyday actions to protect all native local species. 

In Week 3 Year 5 students have been given the incredible opportunity to attend the Darebin Schools’ Naidoc Yarning Conference. At this conference we will be conducting our own Walk for Truth in honour of the recent monumental walk led by Commissioner Travis Lovett from the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Year 5 learners will be encouraged to respond creatively to what they learn by creating their own posters for this walk. They will be encouraged to connect the recent Walk for Truth with the historically important protest walk from Coranderrk to Parliament back in 1881. 

Finally Spring and Summer bring exciting Garden Discovery sessions! All children will be actively involved in harvesting a bounty of Spring crops, including fresh leeks, peas, leafy greens, and cauliflowers the size of your head!  Simultaneously, we will nurture the heritage tomato seedlings propagated before the holidays. 

Good luck with your own Summer plantings! 

Warm Wishes 

Emily Connors 

EWP Educator