1st Prize Winner: Goodstart Quakers Hill

This year at Goodstart Quakers Hill we approached the theme of ‘A Voice for Generations’ and honoring the voices for those who fought for justice in the past by engaging in critical literature review with the children in our Bluegums (4-5’s) room.

We focused on the texts “Finding Our Heart” by Thomas Mayor and collected children’s thinking about the Uluru Statement from the Heart.  

We also explored “Say Yes” by Jennifer Castles and illustrated by Paul Seden. After reading this, beautiful images were inspired by the story and painted by the children.

We were so proud to share the voices and thoughts of our children with our local Elders last week.

2nd Prize Winner: Monash Community Family Co-Operative

​GOAL: Awareness of who are the First Peoples of Australia

Experience 1: Oral story telling from the book ‘Sorry Sorry’ by Ann Kerr and Marda Pitt, emphasizing how the Aboriginal People were being Super Friends for sharing their land with us and expressing Gratitude through an Acknowledgement of Country.

GOAL: To link the prosocial skills of gratitude, help, kindness and share

Experience 2: Use the book “How the birds got their colours’ by Mary Albert, to engage children in
discussion about being Super friends

GOAL: To provide children the opportunity to use creative thinking and expressive language to revisit, recreate, retell the story or create a new story

Experience 3: Use Fine Arts such as making a bird sculpture using colourful feathers and black
playdough and other mediums such as drawing or painting, as per children’s choice.

Experience 4: A small-world play was set up with the book ‘How the birds got their colours’ for
children to use props in their retelling.

Experience 2: Provide the map of the world along with the props used during oral storytelling for
children to use in their storytelling.

3rd Prize Winner: St Joseph’s Port Macquarie

At St Joseph’s Port Macquarie, we understood the theme of ‘A Voice for Generations’ to mean self inspired wisdom from the students stemming from greater knowledge. In Year 3 we explored the meaning of ‘Sorry Day’ and ‘Reconciliation Week’ to remind ourselves that it is our responsibility to make sure history is not repeated. Our Indigenous Education Support Workers were instrumental in sharing knowledge with the students about the past and how they can continue to develop the voice for the future. We understood the theme this year as needing a sense of ownership and throughout our teaching and learning we created an environment of safety for students to take pride and ownership of their ideas. A place where students and staff were able to ask questions to learn and our Indigenous Education Support Workers made sure these questions were valued and used them to teach us all how we can respectfully act. The students focused their brainstorming on being a voice for learning, action and land rights and through learning more about these issues created posters to make their voice heard. Following these creations the students presented their knowledge and ideas at our school prayer assembly where they spoke about these actions and inspired their school community to also be a voice for generations. This included an acknowledgement of Country by one of our Indigenous Education Support Workers in language translated by a non-indigenous student as one action in promoting reconciliation. We concluded our learning remembering that these actions are louder than words and by sharing these with others we all continue to grow.