St Joseph's School Newsletter

Indigenous Education

We are very pleased with our work this year in the realm of Indigenous Education! This year we became a FIRE carrier school also known as Friends Igniting Reconciliation through Education). The Carrier Project is to promote respect, fairness and inclusion for Aboriginal people. The FIRE Carrier Project promotes enculturation and reconciliation. 

 

At the beginning of the year, we developed a FIRE Carrier Covenant which has acted as our Reconciliation Action Plan. Through the collaboration of staff and students, we selected a range of different elements that we wanted to be included in our covenant. These were placed within a time frame of 6 - 24 months. Below are the things we have achieved this year.

  • Use Indigenous prayers and songs during school-based liturgies 
  • Use the message stick and clapping sticks during school-based liturgies
  • Celebrate and commemorate significant First Nations days such as NAIDOC week, Reconciliation Week, Children's Day 
  • Listen/read to First Nations stories

We are looking forward to another successful year ahead! Here are some of the things we would like to achieve in 2023:

  • Display Indigenous the Victorian Language map in all classrooms
  • Build a collection of Indigenous Literature in the school library 
  • Display Acknowledgment of Country in emails and on our school website and in the newsletter
  • Fly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags on our school grounds
  • Create a First Nations notice board/Newsletter article from the FIRE Carrier Leaders
  • Engage with First Nations Artists to develop artwork to display around our school
  • Engage with Worawa school
  • Commence 2024 with a smoking ceremony
  • FIRE Carrier Leaders commissioning staff and students 
  • Letter exchanges to other Indigenous schools

We are very proud of how our students are so inspired and interested in learning about First Nations! The artwork and events they have participated in this year have also been outstanding. Again, thank you for all your support in raising money for the Opening the Doors Foundation during our school Walk-a-thon and cupcake sales! We are still so proud that our school was the primary school that raised the most amount of money!

 

Another piece of art that we have been working on this year is our Indigenous Elders bollards! It has been a long process to complete this task, however, it has been worth the wait to see how much effort each class has put into their designs. We are currently deciding where to showcase these beautiful pieces of artwork! We hope you appreciate how much work and effort has gone into these.

 

 

We would like to say a special thank you to Izack and Evie for all their amazing work this year as the FIRE Carrier leaders. They have been the reason for so many great activities we have done this year! You are both leaving a great legacy!