ABORIGINAL CULTURAL DAY

On Friday 9 August St Joseph's welcomed students from local Feeder schools to our first Aboriginal Culture day. Our amazing Aboriginal education team and students hosted students from year 5 and 6, who were invited to attend and join in on a day full of culture, laughter and fun. Engaging the younger students from our feeder schools was an opportunity for the current students to meet and interact with the younger students, whilst also being able to learn about Aboriginal culture. 

The students were greeted in the hall, after walking in with smiling faces showing such excitement. Aunty Jo Ball began the day with a Welcome to Country followed by Mr Brown giving a warm welcome. Everyone was eager to get started and learn more about their culture. 

The first session was a painting session led by Uncle Kevin Butler, where he demonstrated how to do dot painting, draw some animals and provided an insight into different symbols and cultural art pieces the students could paint. Mr Brown cur and prepared cheese boards for the students to paint an expression of how they felt about their culture or something from their heart.  Some wonderful art pieces were created -  from Aboriginal Flags to Kangaroos and many beautiful dot paintings. St Joseph's students sat in amongst the students chatting and painting as well, giving some friendly advice. The younger students engaged with the older students asking questions about High School and talking socially. 

Morning tea was prepared by Mr Col Ferderer in our hospitality kitchen. There was an  arrangement of bush tucker cakes and slices, with the wattleseed anzac biscuits being the most popular. 

Kim Hobbs lead the weaving lesson where students had the opportunity to create a fish. Students were carefully taught how to weave using three rafia pieces, using the method of over, under, over. They quickly caught on and soon fish were being made with colours of all sorts. The weaving proved to be a bit tricky at times but all the staff and older students were happy help. Ms Jo even stitched Mr Brown up by sending all the students his way to ask for help. He had a whole line of students waiting. By the end of the session every student had completed their bright and colourful fish, some had even begun a second one.

The final session led by Kim Hobbs and Ms Jo allowed students to learn about some traditional artefacts. You could shout out if you knew what the artefacts were and then were given the chance to ask questions.

The day was an amazing opportunity to spend with our local feeder school students - happy, bright and full of culture. 

Thank you to all staff and students that were involved in the day.