Hello everyone

The beginning of last week was very different to how it ended and the space between has been challenging for us at school. As we learned the sad news of Scott Tenberge's death, we immediately focussed on how we could support Nikki and the students who might be impacted by this news, while maintaining the learning and care of the students. The students have been incredible and have demonstrated resilience and kindness in asking after Nikki and her wellbeing and sharing their desire to help her. To be able to empathise with others and offer support at a young age is such a reflection of the values our students demonstrate at school, and I am sure at home too.

We do not have any information around how long Nikki will be away for. In the initial few days after a traumatic event Nikki needs time to process the shock and grief she is in. We have expressed our commitment to supporting her and the Department of Education will also offer continual support for her through this journey. Thank you to our families for reaching out to the staff to support her. School Council sent the staff a lovely morning tea today and this really did lift their spirits. Gestures of kindness, no matter how small, mean a lot to them. Your condolences and messages of support have been wonderful. Nikki has expressed that she feels very supported and is very grateful for this support.

On Friday, we decided to continue with our arranged program and we met Nikoda Brooking, a local indigenous football player for the Warrandyte Football Club, Seniors. Nikoda is a strong advocate for promoting indigenous culture in the community and instigated an initiative to design a jersey for the club to use in a similar fashion to the AFL's new tradition of designing and wearing an indigenous design football jumper during NAIDOC week. The result was the design he created (pictured below)and all senior players proudly wore.

The eagle on the jumper is from Australian Aboriginal mythology. A Wurundjeri dreamtime story tells of a great eagle; the all-powerful, ever watchful creator of the world. The back drop to the Eagle is about the Heritage of Nikoda Brooking, who is a Bunuba and Gooniyandi man. The design of two rivers represent his heritage being the Fitzroy River from Bunaba and the Margaret River from Gooniyandi country.

He also shared a picture story book that his mother had written. 'Winthali (Fire)' was written by Joe Williga Ross & Stacey Bush and is an adaptation of a traditional Bunuba story. The illustrations were done by Nikoda's younger brother and sister. Written in both English and the language of the Bunaba people, the students enjoyed listening as Nikoda shared the book, a story about how the fire brings warmth and light to our world.

1/2J shared their Acknowledgement of Country that the class co-created and Nikoda walked around our classrooms after the assembly to see what each class had created. Nikoda was very encouraged to see our 3 flags flying, the watertank and to see displays and indigenous literature around the school. I was so happy to have Nikoda visit our school and he is a very strong role model for our students. I would like to thank Claire Lambert who approached Nikoda at the WFC and invited him to come to our school. Claire always goes above and beyond for our school, always looking for ways to build on the things we are doing.

This week our Preps to Grade 2's will take part in a two week swimming program. Please ensure your child comes with all the required gear as children become very distressed when something is missing when they get to the pool. Goggles is a big one. The water is very harsh on the eyes. The swimming program is very engaging and the students enjoy themselves but we expect that they will be very tired by the end of each day and certainly towards the end of the 2 week period we often have to adapt our lesson program to accommodate our younger students in the afternoon. We are very happy to be able to finally run a swimming program as it had been cancelled over the last couple of years.

Thank you again for supporting the school and Nikki and as information comes to hand that is relevant to our school community, we will pass it on.

Take care

Nieta

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