Sorry Day and National Reconciliation Week in the Primary School

Over the past week the Primary School community has taken part in a number of special opportunities to mark two very important dates in our calendar, Sorry Day and National Reconciliation Week.

This year, Sorry Day fell on the same day as the Primary Athletics Carnival and we wanted to mark this occasion and pay our respects in a meaningful way. The Year 4 girls worked with Mrs Phillips, Mrs Blakeway and Miss Woodcock to prepare an absolutely beautiful Acknowledgment of Country which they delivered at the start of the carnival. With the glorious autumn sunshine and blue sky overhead, the girls shared words and choreographed movement to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where ES Marks Athletics Field stands, the Bedegal people of the Eora Nation. It was a spine tingling start to a wonderful day!

This year’s theme for National Reconciliation Week is, “More than a word, Reconciliation takes action”, and the girls have explored this theme in a variety of ways. This started with a K-12 Assembly where Ms Allum shared her sorry pledge with the school that she had carefully written on the hand cut out for the “Sorry” installation on the lawn as well as the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Her words certainly set an excellent example and provided stimulus for discussion as the girls completed their own hand for the special display.

In conjunction with this, each year group explored the theme in their own way. Many classes read stories together that share different perspectives of historical events and the need for reconciliation. These included Sorry Day by Carol Vass and Dub Leffler and Stories for Simon by Lisa Miranda Sarzin and Lauren Biigs. Inspired by Stories for Simon, Kindergarten made their own sorry stones to represent their acknowledgement of wrongdoing in our nation’s past. Year 3 put their sorry pledges on their classroom door for passers-by to see. Year 6 blew their teachers away with the level of empathetic understanding they showed in their responses to text exploring the Stolen Generations and the need for reconciliation. In House Families, the Year 6 girls respectfully led an activity to explore the symbolism of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. Each girl contributed to their House Family’s “Sorry Sun”, which are now displayed around the school as another visual reminder of our school’s pledge to acknowledge events of the past and work to take action.

The Christian House leaders took the reins at the Years 3 to 6 Assembly, which began with the Acknowledgement of Country delivered by the whole of Year 6, who lined the stairs of the Lecture Theatre in solidarity. Isabelle Flower (6J) shared what Reconciliation Week means to her as well as reading the story, Coming Home to Country by Bronwyn Bancroft, which was accompanied by breathtaking illustrations shown on the slides for the girls and teachers to see.

Whilst we can’t change the events of the past, I feel confident that the SCEGGS Primary School girls will be excellent advocates to make a difference to the lives of Indigenous Australians of today and in the future.

Sarah Johnstone
Deputy Head of Primary (Student Wellbeing)