At our Waratah 2 centre, they have continuing on their journey on embedding the Aboriginal pedagogy framework into everyday curriculum play spaces. This has been a wonderful journey on educators and children learning together. During NAIDOC the educators have been participating in daily professional training that they are implementing into their daily practices.
We aim to teach our children, educators and families about the importance of respect, compassion, understanding, cultural awareness and relationship building with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. We recognise that children’s connection to their community is essential to their sense of belonging, and that our centre plays a key role in cultivating relationships within the wider community.
Our service has a daily Acknowledgement to Country and participates in raising the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.
All children are also given the opportunity to participate in the yarning circles. This is implemented from the nursery rooms where they come together, all the way up to our preschool rooms where they have wonderful discussions on how we can help the Awabakal people – example looking after the people, animals and land etc.
They have also been learning the Awabakal words from exploring the storybook “Where is the water” written by Aboriginal Students from Newcastle High School.
In our preschool rooms, we have strongly embedded a lot of Awabakal language and an awareness in Indigenous injustices, so we have continued to learn about different Aboriginal people and achievements through a variety of methods highlighting fairness, injustices and advocacy. One of the books that was read through the week was “Finding our Heart” written by Thomas Mayor. This book is so beautifully written and we have never come across another book that explains such a complex issue in a way that young children can really grasp!
On Friday the Preschool rooms participated in a zoom session with Aunty Fay Muir as she read and explained her two books.
We recognise that children’s connection to their community is essential to their sense of belonging, and that our centre plays a key role in cultivating relationships within the wider community.
