Implementing Focus 2019 and the ACSF Standards English & HaSS Learning Area

Effective Leadership  

Use the ACSF to make improving the outcomes for Aboriginal students the role of the entire school community (Focus 2019)

It is paramount we have culturally responsive schools have leaders who develop and sustain an individual and school-wide focus on improving education outcomes for Aboriginal students.  

On all the standard indicators of poverty and disadvantage, Indigenous people emerge as the most socially and economically deprived in Australia. When we adopt an invitational stance with students experiencing hardship, we can summon our Aboriginal students to achieve their potential at Clarkson Community High School.  

I am part of a leadership team committed to honouring the principles of self-determination and enhance how we at Clarkson CHS, foster a higher level of knowledge and pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contributions. The right to self-determination is based on the simple acknowledgment that Indigenous peoples are Australia’s first people, as was recognised by law in the historic Mabo judgement. 

The Aboriginal Cultural framework will assist us in our efforts to close the gap in the education achievements of Aboriginal students and ensure Aboriginal students are confident and successful learners who complete their schooling with the knowledge and skills to access further education, training and employment. 

Clarkson CHS now has an opportunity to further engage the standards of the ACSF through Reconciliation Australia’s (Narragunnawali.org.au, 2017) recommendation that schools implement a Reconciliation Action Plan or a RAP.  

Since 2014, schools or early learning services have used the Narragunnawali platform to develop RAPs. The platform provides teachers with information and ideas around how to implement reconciliation commitments effectively and also includes the flexibility to shape these commitments to CCHS’s context, needs and aspirations. The platform also allows for members of a school’s RAP Working Group to define goals and set timelines. 

Cultural Competence for Staff 

We as a school community can reflect on our current level of cultural competence and provide staff with a range of opportunities to build and extend our knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. 

Communities affected by removal from parents, institutionalisation and other factors have been far more dislocated and consequently, have caused intergenerational trauma. We have a number of indigenous students at Clarkson CHS who have experienced trauma early in life and and in 2019, as a RAP action, we can engage with the Department of Education’s Calmer Classrooms project to strengthen our knowledge of how we can work with traumatised children. Knowledge of the historical trauma suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will fill out the teacher’s understanding of the child. Knowing about the removal of the Stolen Generations is particularly important, as this has caused intergenerational problems with attachment and appropriate child-rearing practices. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have specific educational needs, regardless of whether they have experienced abuse and neglect, but complicated by such experience if present. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have the same spread of intelligence, talents and skills as non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, but learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children may proceed differently, due to cultural differences. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people tend to teach and learn through narrative storytelling, with the addition of visual cues, rather than through reading and processing materials directly. Incorporation of storytelling may be a useful teaching strategy for teachers with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in their classes and RAP 2019 action. 

High Quality Teaching  

Increase the capacity of teachers to use their knowledge of history, culture and experiences of Aboriginal people, and explicitly use this in classroom practice. (Focus 2019)

In 2019, we must improve our awareness of cultural and historical backgrounds and how to translate this into pedagogical practice. If we can do this, it means that we don’t just invite student involvement in relation to learning, but we are intentionally culturally inviting for all students (Inder, 2018). In response, I have directed the team to complete the compulsory professional learning module, “Aboriginal Cultural Appreciation” knowledge of history, culture and experiences of Aboriginal people during Week Ten’s English & HaSS Meeting.   

The Teaching cultural standard from the Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework has been our learning area’s focus standard in 2018. The descriptor demands teachers commit to making learning experiences incorporate the knowledge and experiences Aboriginal students possess. Furthermore, the descriptor requires teachers to build successful relationships through demonstrating they truly honour and respect our students’ context. We applied the standard in Semester One through our Year 8 students’ exploration of the picture book, The Rabbits; an allegory of colonisation by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan. Our students mind mapped the story to organise their thoughts about kinship, displacement, The Stolen Generations and The Dreaming.  

In Term One, we plan to workshop ways of using  https://www.narragunnawali.org.au/ in our learning area meetings and I expect Narragunnawali to shape colleagues’ professional engagement SMART goals. 

Furthermore, all learning programmes in English and HaSS contain a section where the course coordinator must communicate how they engaged with Narragunnawali. 

The website presents teachers with professional learning and curriculum resources to support the implementation of reconciliation initiatives. Notably, Narragunnawali recommends Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and guests co-create a lesson or a series of lessons that draws on their strengths and knowledges. While being careful not to make students and children feel uncomfortable with being “singled out,” Narragunnawali recommends seeking feedback and input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students so they may see themselves and their cultures meaningfully reflected in their learning, and so in turn, be empowered through their learning. Intentional use of Narragunnawali can assist us to engage more broadly with ACSF’s cultural standards and create a more equitable educational system.