Two weeks at Ngaanyatjarra Lands School (March 11-23)

The Honey Ant Readers team have just returned from an extremely rewarding trip to the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School in Western Australia.  The Ngaanyatjarra Lands is an area of approximately 250,000 square kilometres located 1, 542 km from Perth between the Great Gibson Desert to the North and West and the Great Victoria Desert to the South. The traditional owners have maintained strong connection to country and today manage the regional infrastructure including roads, stores, health clinics etc.  The Ngaanyatjarra Lands School was founded as part of a Shared Responsibility Agreement (SRA) between WA Department of Education and Training and the Ngaanyatjarra Council in 2006.  This remote, multi campus school comprising Blackstone, Cosmos Newberry, Jameson, Kiwirrkurra, Tjirrkarli, Tjukurla, Wanarn, Warakurna, Warburton and Wingellina campuses caters for roughly 350 students from Kindergarten to Year 12. These students are multilingual, speaking Ngaanyatjarra, Pintupi and Pitjantjatjara as their first language.

Over a period of 2 weeks, on invitation from executive Principal Kevin O’Keefe, Margaret James assisted by Emma Browne, visited 6 of these schools (Blackstone, Wanarn, Warakurna, Warburton, Wingellina and Tjukurla) to deliver workshops to staff on Aboriginal English, Second language acquisition and the rationale and uses of the Honey Ant Readers. At each campus, Margaret complemented her workshops with classroom demonstrations at all levels- early childhood, primary and secondary, sharing ideas on how to use the HAR resources and how to engage children from non-English speaking backgrounds through books, songs and rhymes.

Sandy Roberston and Judy Boston Primary and Early Childhood curriculum coordinators tirelessly drove the us over 3000 km during the 2 week trip, across changing time-zones between the NT,  WA, and a short stint on the famous Gun Barrell highway!   This was an enormous feat, particularly considering that 12.6km of the 1,444km roads in the entire region are sealed!! On our drive from the airport we came across a rather sad looking donkey, who put his head in the car window to inspect our copy of Book 3 in Warlpiri language.

 Our first stop was Blackstone Remote School, located in between the western and Great Victorian deserts, at the foot of the picturesque Blackstone ranges. Here, Margaret worked with teachers Catherine, David, Diane and Tia, AIEO Sheree and principal Anthea.  She visited their classrooms to demonstrate working with the books, modelling activities and taking individual students for one-on-one reading sessions in secondary class.

Our next school was Wingellina,the closest community to the NT and WA borders. We were welcomed to this cozy, inviting campus by a small group of friendly students and after PD with teacher Rosanna, principal Shane and AIEO Natalia, we spent many happy hours in classrooms and in the library taking a whole-school reading session. Kids piled into a reading corner on big, comfy, colourful pillows and read Book 12 “Drowned him, drowned him” a story about the rainbow serpent at Ellery Waterhole. Despite the geographical distance from this spot and absence of waterholes in the area, this book seemed to be a stand-out favourite among students in the Lands.

 

 

 We finished the first week in Warakurna – home of the Giles Weather station (where we watched the releasing of their weather balloon!) nestled in the Rawlinson Ranges near the West Australian/Northern Territory border approximately 330klms west of Uluru. From Warakurna we began our second week with a day trip to Tjukurla, one of the smallest campuses of the NPY Lands. Here we worked with a great group of staff- Jenna (Early years), Ben (secondary) ,Lizzie (AIEO) and Carol (principal) and were strucked by the culture of caring among teachers and students. During the training Lizzie explained to us how  Ngaanyatjarra language has simpler forms of language for infants that consider difficulties in pronunciation and grammar!  Lizzie has taken up the challenge to translate HARs 1-3 into Ngaanyatjarra language- which is so exciting, particularly as  almost all feedback from the training requested support to develop readers for Ngaanyatjarra speakers.

After Tjukurla we had our first of two days at Warakurna campus delivering PD to teachers Jenny, Carrie, David, Hannah, Briodie and assistants Troy, Joyce and Celina. Teachers brainstormed ideas for using the playing cards and told stories of going to school, hunting and social issues of littering and bullying using the conversation cards. Warakurna is one of the largest campuses with teachers supporting up to 20 students in their classes. We enjoyemaking activity stations in Hannah’s early years class and digging for honey ants while singing the song, ‘nana dig’  in Jenny’s primary class. When Jenny sings the song, she substitutes nana for the the childrens’ names- needless to say they LOVE it and cant wait until its their turn to dig!

From Warakurna we drove to Wanarn, one of the smaller communities in the NPY lands -originally an outstation of Warburton. We were impressed by the beautiful  artwork on the school buildings and PD there were lively debates around Aboriginal English with Principal Mitchell and teaching staff Amanda, Noreen, Laurent and John. We discussed the negative connotations surrounding the term “Aboriginal English” and talked about finding new ways of describing this dialect to emphasise that its position as equally valid to other dialects- Standard Australian English, American English etc.

We had to leave Wanarn at lunchtime to drive 2 hours to Warburton to deliver workshops to teachers after school hours. Warburton was the first community to be established in the Lands in the 1930s and is thus one of the larger centres with a big roadhouse, store, clinic, women’s centre, and Ngaanyatjarra Community College in addition to the school. We ran the largest workshop at Warburton remote school with 9 staff in attendance.

It was a great privilege to be welcomed into so many communities, homes and schools to work with dedicated teachers living miles from their homes, and bright, multilingual, multitalented students with so much potential. A big thank you to executive principal Kevin O’ Keefe and to Sandy Robertson, Judy Boston and all the teachers and staff in the NPY lands for a truly inspiring visit!

Here is some of the feedback from teachers after the training:

“So reassuring to know that people are interested in, and spending time to create resources for AE speakers. The kids are excited to read books that are in context with their life.”  (Primary teacher)

“Very enjoyable training for a very valuable resource.  I particularly appreciate the classroom session and wish it was longer. I would be interested I learning how other teachers use the cards”. (Primary teacher)

“Excellent resource, great starting point for an inexperienced second language teacher such as myself. Look forward to implementing it in my class program”. (Secondary teacher)

“It is so great to have a set of readers that students in remote schools can relate to. The opportunities for class discussion and engagement are huge”. (Primary teacher)

“Thank you for such an engaging, informative and valuable PD session ! We need more of these sessions across the lands- would be great to get learning areas together (eg. ECE, Primary, Secondary)to workshop ideas and connect to learning context and offer us a whole day PD. Thank you very much!”  (Secondary teacher)

Would love to get all the music. Great way of engaging students. Such lovely books, wish we had more time! (Primary teacher)