Cooinda News

It has been a busy two terms for everyone in Cooinda. We have spent lots of time preparing to be the host for the Gosford City Learning Community NAIDOC Day celebrations. In our first week of Term 3 Dr Gordon Reid and Liesl Tesch visited Cooinda and spoke with some of our students about leadership and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

We would like to thank Dr Gordon Reid and Liesl Tesch for taking time out of their busy schedules to sit and yarn with our young ones. Dr Reid shared many stories and our students also shared their stories with him and Liesl. Dylan Wade, Larna Homer and Faith Drylie spoke of the importance of Cooinda to them and how much pride they have in their culture and being part of Cooinda. Liesl and Dr Reid spoke of the importance of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and discussed this in-depth with our students.

Chase Riley, one of our Cooinda students assisted Dr Gordon Reid in placing his handprint on the wall and Larna Homer placed Liesl Tesch’s handprint on our allies door.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Gordon Reid and Liesl Tesch for spending time with and inspiring our young ones. They are still talking about it!

Another really amazing day was our NAIDOC Day Celebration, where students from Gosford Public School, Gosford High School and Point Clare Public School joined Henry Kendall High School students and teachers to Get Up, Stand Up, Show Up in so many ways. A big thank you to Jonathon and Tammy Wright from Dhinewan Connections who facilitated the workshops with our students.

There were many great moments where the big kids helped out with the little ones. Mr Parkes and Ms Selsby would like to thank all our Cooinda students for stepping up and helping us out big time, what a team we are. Just watching the little ones connect with our kids was really beautiful to see and they should all be proud of themselves because we could not have done it without them.

Uncle Gavi Duncan and Lily Hodgson also joined us for the day and it was such an honour to sit with them and listen to their stories. Alan Herring joined us as well and again more inspirational stories for our kids to listen to. We also managed to get a few great photos of Uncle Gavi and Alan sitting with all the kids and to think that 30 years ago their vision for the room has grown into something incredibly special and important to our community. Uncle Gavi also took a moment to place Lily’s handprint on the wall and her story is now part of the story of a really important place to us.

Thank you Uncle Gavi, Lily, Alan, Tammy and Jonathon and all from Dhinewan Connections, Gosford High School, Gosford Public School and Point Clare Public School.