NAIDOC Week is a time to celebrate the rich histories, diverse cultures, and significant achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The theme for this year:
Keep the fire burning! Blak, loud and proud is especially poignant in honouring the enduring strength and vitality of First Nations cultures.
At ESA, we work hard to provide culturally inclusive and accessible education resources to support educators and their students to develop knowledge of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and cultures as part of
our reconciliation journey.
We're proud to highlight some of the initiatives we have undertaken that align with these values and support our goal of making a positive difference in education.
Noongar Language Program
ESA is working in partnership with the Western Australian Department of Education to develop the Yikan Noongar Language Program for Years 3–6.
With 90% of schools located on Noongar Country, the demand for Noongar language programs is growing exponentially. Beginning in Year 3, the program supports public schools to officially offer Noongar Language as part of their Languages Curriculum.
This ground-breaking program provides all the teaching and learning resources to enable Noongar languages teachers and Noongar people with knowledge of language, to deliver culturally responsive language learning pedagogies in each of the three dialectal regions.
The project demonstrates that distance is no barrier as our team of Noongar language specialists, languages educators, and project teams from ESA and the Department of Education collaborate to shape this program.
The project team is further supported by a Circle of Advisors, comprised of Noongar language teachers who play an essential role in capturing the dialect variations and in supporting the development of resources.
Together, we have created a unique resource for schools enabling students to learn one of 24 Western Australian Aboriginal Languages across 97 public schools. The Year 3 program has been completed; the Year 4 program is in development.
English Language Learning for Indigenous Children (ELLIC)
The ELLIC project has created a series of
beautiful story books, illustrated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across Australia. These books are designed to be enjoyed at home and provide children with the opportunity to deep dive into the lives of the ELLIC characters.
The Girls in STEM Toolkit (The GiST): webinar
The GiST and myfuture teams collaborated earlier this year to host a webinar about girls in game design. The
recording of this session is available from The GiST website.
One of the presenters, Phoebe Watson, a Yarrer Gunditj woman from the Maar Nation is Lead Game Designer at a Melbourne-based studio. You can find out more about
Phoebe's journey from gamer to game designer on the myfuture website.
myfuture: Insights paper and webinar
Our
Term 1 insights paper explores how First Nations success can be shaped by providing culturally appropriate career advice. The myfuture team also hosted a webinar with the author, Tracy Ryan (Marradhali Aboriginal Corporation at Charles Sturt University) on supporting First Nations kids towards career success.
You can watch the recording online.
Mathematics Hub: Embedding Indigenous Knowledges
In collaboration with the Stronger Smarter Institute, the Maths Hub team has
developed a series of resources to help educators explore the connections between mathematics and the histories and cultures of First Nations peoples.
You’ll also find a
range of lesson plans developed in collaboration with Caty Morris and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance (ATSIMA) that explore reconciliation, First Nations games, and the mankarr.
Digital Technologies Hub: new lesson ideas
The DT Hub team has collaborated with Aboriginal educators and organisations in respectful partnerships to
develop teaching resources that support teachers to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in Digital Technologies related lessons.
Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS): AustLang terms
The SCIS team have been working to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language codes to their cataloguing. SCIS are using AustLang codes which were compiled by Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), allowing users of SCIS metadata to find items in specific Australian indigenous languages.
The project supports the RAP deliverable of 'Enhance SCIS Data to cultivate respectful, culturally appropriate subject heads, descriptive cataloguing and presentation of data'. The work the team have been doing also aligns directly with the cross-curriculum priority of the Australian Curriculum, Version 9: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.
