Gamilaroi Elder Visits

Each Wednesday, Gamilaroi elder Tammy Wright has been leading a group of Junior School Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through learning, talking and sharing ideas about language, identity and culture.

Students have investigated their personal totems, crafted emu feather headdresses and explored ideas relating to Reconciliation.

into a spider web. Our artwork shows that all things are connected. An important word we learned was custodian. The Darkinjung were the first custodians of this Country. Now we are too.”

Year 6 have been involved in creating two Acknowledgements of Country – one in their own classes and one with their Kindergarten buddies. Tahmeika in Year 6 explained:

“Custodianship was a really important concept we discussed. It was rewarding to help teach our Kindy buddies about this idea as we walked around the School collecting things from Country to display in their classrooms. It was exciting too, to see how enthusiastic they were about all their nature discoveries.”

Reconciliation Week

As part of Reconciliation Week, Torres Strait Island, Aboriginal and Australian Flags were presented for display in each neighbourhood area to welcome, acknowledge and value our First Nations peoples, histories, cultures and futures.

Kindergarten students and their Year 6 buddies joined together to make reconciliation bracelets. They soon learned that while they could make their own bracelet, they needed help to tie it on. They learned what reconciliation means as an individual, with their friends, in their wider community and across our nation.

CCGS has joined a global community of schools working with URSTRONG, an organisation designed to help students, parents and teachers connect with a common language of friendship.

Students from Kindergarten to Year 4 learnt the difference between healthy and unhealthy friendships and how to stand up for themselves with kid-friendly concepts. With help from a soft toy from home, our little learners took part in role-playing activities, while URSTRONG