Our Aboriginal Education program at Bankstown South Infants School is delivered across the whole school, starting at Preschool.
My Personal Journey
As an EALD (English as an Additional Language or Dialect) teacher, I love delivering my EALD program using hands-on real-life activities. I have a vegie garden at school and some of the lessons and activities I do with the children are based around the garden.
After attending some Professional Learning on developing programs around school gardens and Aboriginal perspectives, I could see how I could integrate Aboriginal perspectives in my learning programs, alongside the 8 Ways of Learning framework.
New school hall – a new school journey
Kim, the principal, asked me to think about gardens for around the new school hall. We obtained a Woolworths Land Care grant for an Aboriginal Bush Tucker garden, and a real project was created that would involve all the children.
Next steps
Our next steps are to:
- add an Aboriginal Yarning Circle to our garden
- add names to the plant
- continue to teach the children about the plants and their uses
- learn to cook with plants from the garden
- continue to network.
Networking is important
Our school hall garden
Planning for Aboriginal friendship poles
Aboriginal friendship poles