Indigenous Education Program

Indigenous Education Program An update from Mr Cameron Lestro

The TSS Foundation is fortunate to have the immense support of various corporate sponsors and major donors, enabling the Foundation to significantly contribute to the Indigenous Education Program here at the school. Below, Mr Cameron Lestro gives us an update on our Indigenous students who are forever grateful for the support from the Foundation and the wider TSS community.

My vision is to help our Indigenous students recognise the remarkable opportunity they have at TSS to achieve in all areas of their schooling experience

For those people I haven’t met yet my name is Cameron Lestro and I had the honour at the start of this year to be appointed to the position of Indigenous Liaison Officer of The Southport School. I am also a teacher at the school and having extensive experience in pastoral care I am passionate about looking after young people and seeing them reach their full potential. My vision is to help our Indigenous students recognise the remarkable opportunity they have at TSS to achieve in all areas of their schooling experience, with the ultimate goal of graduating high quality men that leave TSS to be future leaders, not just of Indigenous people but also of the wider community.

The words ‘Banam Bowia’ means ‘Younger Brother Shark’ and comes from the language of the traditional owners of the land where TSS is located. The traditional owners are the Yugumbeh people and they have graciously given us their blessing in using their language to name the Indigenous Program for TSS. This name will also be taken on by our long standing and cornerstone support group HandUp who continue to give their unwavering support. I’d like to take this opportunity to recognise and thank the elders of the Yugumbeh people for advising and supporting TSS in the education of our Indigenous Students and the development of our program.

Term One kicked off and the Indigenous boys had a pizza night whilst voting in the new name for the Indigenous program. We were then generously offered an outing to Game Over, which the boys thoroughly enjoyed playing Laser Tag and ripping around the indoor go cart track. Our best driver on the day was Luke Tennant who was hot on the heels of our ruthless bus driver Mr Browne.

One of the highlights of the term was to hear of Malachi Stanley getting Academically Most Improved for Year 10 in Delpratt House. This young man has had his challenges in the past but everyone, especially his housemaster Mr Bland, has stuck with and challenged Malachi and it’s so heart-warming to see Malachi start moving toward the potential we all know he is capable of. The other highlight that made our term was the comeback story of Matthew Dalton. Matthew narrowly missed out on selection for the First XI cricket team for the start of the season after performing really well in off season training and pre-season games. I spoke to Matthew after selections were announced and he was understandably disappointed although you could tell he was determined to fight on. After stand out performances for the Second XI Matty finally got his opportunity half way through the season to play for the Firsts. During the final game TSS had to win against Ipswich Grammar to take the premiership and with Ipswich having one wicket left but needing 10 runs to win, an immensely nervous Matty Dalton was thrown the ball. He didn’t waste any time and took the last wicket and secured the premiership with the first ball of the over. I was fortunate enough to visit Matty’s family in Grafton and as we sat there with his mother Heidi and little brother Callum (who started Year 7 at TSS this year) I don’t think there was a dry eye among them as we talked of Matty’s cricket season.

We have already seen a great start to Term Two and hosted our first Indigenous lunch in the Darnell Room next to the dining hall, which allowed for all of our students to gather for lunch with some of the key support people at the school. We also are looking forward to our senior students taking a trip to Melbourne next week to attend the AFL Indigenous round showcase event Dreamtime at the G.

On behalf of all our Indigenous boys here at the School we thank all TSS Foundation donors and sponsors for all of your support in giving them the opportunity of a lifetime to extend and fulfil their potential here at The Southport School. Each one of the events and highlights I have mentioned above could not happen without you and we hope to keep giving these outstanding boys more significant opportunities into the future.