 2020. What a year! I for one am so glad that it is coming to an end! I am counting down the days until the holidays begin and we can slow down and sink into holiday mode and enjoy some salt-water healing on our usual trip north to gorgeous Gumbaynggirr Country. It has been a big year for Wingaru and I am really proud of what we have achieved and the support we have been able to provide during this unusual year. Some of the wins for Wingaru in 2020 have been:  Supporting Schooling From Home With many students schooling from home, we saw record numbers of students logging in to use our resources, completing activities that explored First Nations culture while strengthening their comprehension, problem solving and ICT skills.  All Together Now Our educators worked with Reconciliation NSW to deliver another year of All Together Now, an initiative to support teachers to celebrate Reconciliation Week and we are very pleased to be welcoming another round of finalists from the NSW Schools Reconciliation Challenge to the Wingaru Kids platform.  Wingaru Butabuta Our Butabuta team continued to support organisations, adapting quickly from face to face sessions to online training that saw the Aunties become zoom wizzes – well almost ;). This year we supported a number of amazing organisations with cultural awareness training as well as help to develop culturally safe work environments that support both staff and Aboriginal clients. We worked with Home Teacher to support their partnership with the Smith family to deliver home tutoring scholarships to 100 students. Many of these students identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and we love being able to support this amazing group of teachers providing tutoring to do this in a culturally appropriate way.  Professional Development We also launched digital Professional Development for teachers which is available individually or as part of the Wingaru Kids subscription. The feedback has been really positive with many teachers telling us they now feel more confident including Aboriginal perspectives in their teaching and with working with Aboriginal students and their families. We also provided PD for the Relief Teacher Association and I delivered a session at their annual conference – stepping out of my own comfort zone, as I support teachers to step out of their own. You can check out our courses here.  Supporting Healthy Communities Our IT team delivered a bespoke platform for the NSW Ministry of Health’s Aboriginal Health Knockout Challenge, supporting the amazing team running the program to expand the reach of this fantastic initiative that delivers life-changing health benefits to communities across NSW. I am in awe of the mobs who took part this year for all their hard work and the amazing results.  Planning with Wingaru and Mr J Challenge The “Planning with Wingaru and Mr J Challenge” was a big focus for the Wingaru team in term 4 and I could not be happier with how it went. We saw so many deadly teachers sharing how they were including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in their classrooms and supporting each other as they took on the challenge of increasing the amount of First Nations content that they included. I got to know the amazing Mr J who was so generous with his time and self in sharing his journey to refine his personal approaches to Aboriginal education. For so many teachers, getting Aboriginal education right means stepping out of their comfort zone completely which can be overwhelming and I know there are so many teachers who benefited from Mr J’s regular updates, tips and learnings as a non-Aboriginal teacher taking on this important area of education. I want to thank every teacher who has taken part in the Challenge. I’d love to hear how you went and how taking part changed your classroom. While the Challenge is over, the planners are still available to download here if you would like to plan your First Nation inclusions for next year. 2020 has been a crazy year and I cannot wrap up without acknowledging the hard work of teachers who have showed amazing resilience and flexibility in supporting kids in this year of uncertainty. If you are a parent, please take the time to thank your teacher – they earn that thanks every year but this year more than ever that work needs to be acknowledged.
If you are a teacher, I hope that during this busy time you have the opportunity to take a breath and look around at the world before you. As a teacher you have changed lives this year. You have given the gift of knowledge, helped build self-esteem and shape opinions. You have supported children and families to survive schooling from home and shown a flexibility that many didn’t know possible. You have undoubtedly worked into the night and woken worried about a student who struggles with change and needed extra support to cope with the chaos that has been 2020. Your dedication and hard work have not gone unnoticed. While I am keen for this year to be done, I look forward to next year and all that lies ahead. We have some great things planned and I can’t wait to share them with you. We have new lessons coming about seasons, plant use and my personal favourite, a lesson about the Aboriginal history of Coffs Harbour featuring the stories of Gumbaynggirr Elder, Aunty Sue Hoskins, who generously spent time with us this year sharing her stories. We also have more PD coming and our cultural awareness calendar is filling up. Stay safe, keep healthy and enjoy the festive season!
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 Well, here we are at the last full week of school here in NSW and the final challenge chatter email. I hope you’ve had a great week and an even better term despite the craziness that always is Term 4.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve come to the end of our #PlanningWithWingaruAndMrJChallenge already, it feels like just yesterday I sat down with my Wingaru Planner and looked at how I was going to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives each week. Despite, the name I’ve actually found this journey to be anything but a challenge. For me personally, it’s hasn’t been hard to find ways to embed this important cross curriculum priority, it’s been more about changing the way I think, being more mindful and forming new habits when it comes to planning my lessons and units of work. Thanks to the amazing resources from Wingaru and this incredible online community I’ve never been short of great lesson ideas, activities and resources that I can use throughout my week across a range of KLAs. My eyes have been opened to new perspectives, ideas and insights that I wasn’t aware of before and I’m so excited to take all of this with me into a new year. For me, this was never about doing a “one off” thing for a term, but it was about changing the way I’ve done things for the last 12 and a half years as an educator and leader in schools. The way I look at it, this isn’t the end of our challenge but simply the start of a new journey and I’m really looking forward to taking this Challenge further and sharing many of the insights, resources and approaches that I’ve seen from others over the past 10 weeks with my colleagues and students. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for being a part of our Challenge this term. I hope it’s been a positive experience for you as an educator and you’ve come away with something new that you can continue to use beyond this Challenge. As a non-Aboriginal educator, 2020 has been a wake up call both personally and professionally and I’ve continually challenged myself to do better when it comes to embedding First Nations perspectives and content into my classroom because I had been ignorant up until now. For that I am deeply sorry and I am committed to doing better moving forward. Thank you again for those who followed along on this journey, for those who gave it a go and for those who shared their weekly intentions with us along with a snapshot into their classrooms. You’ve continued to inspire me and so many others. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year season friends! Mr J  The “Planning with Wingaru and Mr J Challenge” was a big focus for the Wingaru team in term 4 and I could not be happier with how it went.
The Challenge encouraged teachers to include an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander perspective each week for term 4. That meant 10 opportunities for students to explore the fascinating cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to embed that knowledge within their understanding of Australian history. We wanted to show how accessible Aboriginal perspectives can be and support teachers to refine their approach and take away some of the hesitation that many teachers feel when it comes to including First Nations content in the classroom. We teamed up with the brilliant Mr J from Mr J’s Classroom (check his work out here). He agreed to share his journey as a non-Aboriginal teacher tackling the Challenge to increase Aboriginal content in his classroom. Mr J was so generous with his time and self in sharing his journey to refine his personal approaches to Aboriginal education and I know there are so many teachers who benefited from Mr J’s regular updates, tips and learnings. The Challenge is something I have been thinking about for a while now. I talk to so many teachers who feel that Aboriginal perspectives are out of reach and I want to change that perception. By encouraging teachers to include content more often by aligning it with units of work they are already delivering, I believe we can have a huge impact on the collective knowledge Australians have about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and our cultures. We saw so many deadly teachers sharing how they were including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in their classrooms and supporting each other as they took on the challenge of increasing the amount of First Nations content that they included. So many ideas were shared about ways to include perspectives in busy classrooms and I loved how many teachers I spoke to that said the Challenge had made them rethink how they do Aboriginal content and how they will continue to focus on including more. That’s what it was all about. I also spoke to a number of teachers who said the Challenge gave them confidence in the approaches they were already taking. Sometimes we just need that little bit of reassurance to give us confidence in our actions. I want to take this opportunity to thank every teacher who participated. I know stepping out of your comfort zone is not easy and changing the way you work can be hard, particularly when you are in charge of a busy classroom. We offered three chances to win a 12-month Wingaru Kids subscription for schools participating in the Challenge. The winners of these subscriptions are: For signing up to the Challenge: Congratulations Jessica Malu! For sharing their planner on social media: Congratulations @mephamsensei! For sharing their weekly intention on social media: Congratulations @kicking.goalswithmiss.s! We look forward to welcoming your schools to the Wingaru Kids mob. While the Challenge is over, the planners are still available to download HERE if you would like to plan your First Nation inclusions for next year.  2020. What a year! I for one am so glad that it is coming to an end! I am counting down the days until the holidays begin and we can slow down and sink into holiday mode and enjoy some salt-water healing on our usual trip north to gorgeous Gumbaynggirr Country. The tree is up, the elf has arrived and Christmas craft has started coming home from school – Christmas has arrived! While Christmas was not a traditional Aboriginal celebration, many of our mob embrace the holiday today and we celebrate it with great enthusiasm. Our mob gathers, we have a big feed and there is no shortage of laughter. Community Christmas events bring us together, providing opportunity for connection with people and culture. Blak Santas hand out gifts to our jarjums and the Aunties and Uncles gather, sharing stories that we have heard over and over but at the same time can never hear enough. But before we can get to that we have to make it through the final weeks of term. The energy of kids this time of year seems to be ebbing on exploding with cards and candy canes starting to be exchanged. Teachers are frantic, writing reports and finishing work units as well as planning for next year, all while managing the day-to-day of classrooms full of tired children who are ready for their summer break. Christmas craft is the perfect inclusion this time of year and this year we have some new handouts that bring an Aboriginal perspective into the busy classroom. Including simple activities like these helps keep Aboriginal content a regular inclusion in your classroom, even at this busy time. Have fun exploring bush flavours or creating some Aboriginal inspired gift-cards or tree decorations with your students – I would love to see what you do!  Aboriginal/Indigenous Education Classroom Printable Resource for Christmas - Free
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December 2021
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