Yarning Circle Opening 

The main parts of our Yarning Circle are completed and this week, we conducted a small ceremony to celebrate its opening.  At Coomera Rivers we aspire for all of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to see their culture and heritage woven into the fabric of their everyday schooling experiences. Our local indigenous community members are an integral and valued part of our Coomera Rivers family and the Yarning Circle, no doubt, will become a special space that will provide opportunities for us to connect, hear yarns and learn more about our local history and heritage.

It has been the work of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Educational Team to promote and educate our school community on the important work of embedding of Indigenous perspectives within our daily practises. I am extremely proud of their achievements thus far and thank them for their commitment in seeing this project to fruition. I make special mention of Mrs Karen Caswell, Ms Cheyanne Conroy, Ms Brittany Dare and Ms Waide who were integral to the process.

The Yarning Circle and the accompanying story poles are the first installation, in what we hope to become a cultural hub – with a mural and the planting of native plant species planned. A thank you as well to Ventia and Mr Chris Church for his assistance in coordinating and overseeing the build of the Yarning Circle. Thanks also to Justine Dillon for joining us on Monday and conducting the smoking ceremony.

This space – a space for harmonious, respectful communications and the sharing and preservation of culture – is dedicated to our children. 

Family link

Tyles visited Ms Waide this week to show her a story written and illustrated by members of his family.  He was seriously proud!

Year 2 coding for NAIDOC week

This week in DigiDesign, we celebrated NAIDOC week and the Year 2 students combined their coding skills using spheros to create a story using Aboriginal symbols.  Students worked in teams to create a story and setting the symbols out in a line.  Students then used the movement, lights, speaking and sound features to code, write and create a story. Then students connected to the spheros and ran their coding through the robots. Their video stories are uploaded to their DigiDesign Seesaw class if you wanted to view them.

And across the classrooms

The students have busy as well.