Deadly Jarjums Program

At Ipswich Early Education Centre and Preschool, we have built a strong connection and Partnership with our local school, Leichhardt State School. The program that is incorporated weekly is Deadly Jarjums (children), embedding authentic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into our early childhood curriculum, through program, practice and strengthening the children’s sense of belonging and identity.

This program is implemented by the Indigenous Coordinator at Leichhardt State School Aunty Marley.

Aunty Marley has built strong relationships with the children at our service and supports the children in building knowledge around Yuggera, Jaggera and Urunpal people, encouraging respect for the histories of the First Nations peoples and a genuine understanding of the land we live on.

Each week the children are educated on dream time stories, history behind our first nations people and learning the Yuggera Language using words in local Aboriginal languages for greetings, aboriginal names of Australian animals, plants, body parts and other terms children understand, their favourite song to sing in Yuggera Language is head, shoulders, knees and feet.

Aunty Marley implements an Indigenous language program to preserve the local language. The program is highly regarded throughout the school community, where strong connections have been developed and maintained. The children have built a range of Yuggera Language skills with greetings, hello, welcome and numbers 1-5. It gives Aunty Marley a sense of pride in her culture and feeling proud of who she is. Giving the children an understanding of diversity, differences and acceptance of others.

Additionally, our incursions and excursions explore topics such as storytelling, music, art or ‘caring for country’ and powerful learning experiences to support a child’s development and understanding. The program extends further into meaningful arts and craft experiences and exploring the schools bush tucker gardens. The children have established a connection with nature through the garden and Leichhardt State School’s outdoor play environments. Helping the children to build a strong connection to their world, developing environmental responsibility, and awareness on how to care for bush tucker plants. The bush tucker plants have been used back at the service in the children’s cooking experiences and incorporated into sensory dough and other intentional teaching experiences.

The service utilises the bush land on the back of school grounds as our Bush Kindy program, where children are immersed in the natural world, learning about the indigenous history of the land they are exploring and all of its wonderful inhabitants. During one of our Bush Kindy excursions the children participated in gathering large branches and stick to build their own Gunyah, which is a temporary shelter, traditionally used by Australian Aboriginal people.

At Ipswich Early Education Centre, we value the importance of providing inclusive environments and programs for all children, building a connection between our early childhood setting and the local community. Our children in the kindergarten room also have the opportunity to build awareness and familiarity in the school environment. This will support the children with their transition to school process with the grade 5 children assisting Aunty Marly in the Deadly Jarjums program.

The Deadly Jarjums program and Aunty Marley have made a big impact and positive change into our service practices and programs. Not only sharing knowledge with the children and building cultural awareness, also supporting the Educators to build confidence and how to be culturally competent in embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island perspectives into their day to day program. It is very rewarding to capture those magical moments during the program, the strong connections and relationships that have formed between the children and Aunty Marley and our local community.