Head of Education

This newsletter article is being written as I sit at the Evonne Goolagong Foundation Tennis Day, in Bendigo.  The Evonne Goolagong Foundation runs the Australia wide Dream, Believe, Learn, Achieve Programme supported by the Australian Government which promotes and helps provide better health and education for young Indigenous Australians. This is an incredible opportunity for the MITS students to connect with other Aboriginal students from around Victoria.  While it might have been a two hour bus trip to get here it is immediately obvious why we have made the effort.  Huge smiles, enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go at a sports that not all of them have played before, not to mention meeting Evonne Goolagong herself.

In addition to these trips, a visit from the Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove, a spot in the Richmond Football Club Team Photo and Willie Rioli and Daniel Rioli visiting our students, have been incredible moments. More importantly, our students have been immersed in reading and writing workshops, innovative maths classes and wellbeing classes that are challenging the students to think about how they manage and solve problems in challenging circumstances across a variety of contexts.  

Finally, I would like to thanks the students who each day, but especially through our Arts and Intercultural Studies classes, have allowed all of us on the teaching team to gain an incredible insight into their culture and families.  They are thoughtfully investigating their language and culture and have displayed some of this on the classroom walls.  It will continue to create a both ways learning space, where everyone that enters, is able to make connections with the MITS students.  

Ryan Martin