Tag: Eco Leaders

Posted in Community involvement, Leadership, Sport

Leadership Update #20

Posted on by antheabartlett

Dear Families,

Between the 26th of May and the 3rd  of June we have celebrated Reconciliation Week at HVPS. The theme for this year is More than a Word. Reconciliation takes action.

Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and importantly as a nation. At the heart of this journey are relationships between the broader Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Our partnership is about to welcome a new Aboriginal Community Education Officer who will work across a number of schools including Aberfoyle Park High School.

Thank you to the families who attended our Working Bee last Sunday. We had beautiful weather and were able to mulch, spread out the bark chip pile by the front fence, tidied up trees in the Million Trees Forest and cleared out the water way in the Junior Primary Nature Play area.

We are in the process of developing a new student use of mobile phones and personal devices at school policy. Under the department’s policy primary aged students are not permitted to access their mobile phones and personal devices during the school day. Currently students are expected to drop their mobile phones off at the front office at the commencement of the school day and then collect them after 3:15pm. Any new processes will be communicated with our students and families once we have finalised the policy.

Towards the end of this term we will be conducting the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). NCCD is an annual collection of information about Australian school students with disability. The NCCD enables schools, education authorities and governments to better understand the needs of students with disability and how they can be best supported at school. Please find attached some parent and family information regarding this collection.

Two of our students, Neive and Jasmine have been representing HVPS in the School Sport SA, Southern Valley District Netball team. They have had games all week and we look forward to hearing about how the team performed.

Today we have Alex and Melinda, our Onkaparinga Waste & Recycle Support Officers along with Jeremy Gramp our Greening Adelaide Education Officer at school conducting a waste audit. Eco Leaders have collected our school’s waste since Wednesday and are spending the day sorting through our rubbish under the COLA. Once the sorting has been concluded, Alex and Melinda will provide the school with a report which will give us some recommendations of where to next with our school’s waste reduction.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Paul and Anthea

Posted in student wellbeing
Posted on by antheabartlett

Cultural Burn, Tuthangga, Adelaide Parklands 14th May 2021

The culmination of meetings between the City of Adelaide, the Kaurna community and the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) was a bio-cultural burn in a small area of the Adelaide Park Lands. This project is to incorporate Kaurna knowledge into the management of the Park Lands.

Lilli, Della and Mum, Nikki and I joined other interested people in the Southern Parklands on Friday 14th May. The morning started with official speeches from a range of people from interested groups. As the guests organised themselves, an Elder and a younger man used a wooden dish to hold coals and green leaves to make smoke. This smoke is an important part of any Aboriginal ceremony and was present during the whole ceremony. The smoke is believed to cleanse and rid the area of bad spirits and help protect people and their well-being.

After the opening ceremony we all followed Victor Steffensen to the area of the burn.  Victor is well known for using his filmmaking, writing and musician skills as a way of sharing his traditional knowledge to improve our Country both culturally and environmentally. Today it was his skill as an Indigenous Fire Practitioner.

Victor told us how a seasonal cool burn meant vegetation, insects and animals all benefited.  The time of the year for the burn was very important. Victor explained that the traditional Aboriginal people lived off the land.  The Country and its vegetation supplied shelter, food and medicine as well as tools. Over thousands of years the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders learnt how to look after their Country.  Many of our native vegetation need to be burnt to germinate their seeds.  The cool burn helps reinvigorate the vegetation and does not damage soil.  Birds know to search amongst clumps of burnt grasses to find seeds.

We watched as Victor and a group of Kaurna and Aboriginals from other groups joined him with green branches to keep the fire under control.  Victor checked the wind and then used coals from the smoking bowl to encourage the fire to burn in a circle.  Because there was a tinge of green grass already growing, the fire did not race.

As the fire moved over the Parklands, we followed and looked with amazement at the green shoots still there after the burn.

It was an amazing experience. We learnt that the traditional burn is not something that happens singularly, it is part of looking after our whole ecosystem.

Wendy Nicolle