“We have a passion for supporting children to engage with nature, manage risk and engage in child directed play in a natural, open-ended play environment. Embedding Bunurong knowldge enahnces this connection to Country.”
North Brighton Kindergarten runs an On Country program. This hands-on learning program focuses on the importance of children
• embedding indigenous learning into all aspects of our program in a real, meaningful and authentic way
• engaging with nature, and
• learning outdoors.
Supported by passionate educators, our children learn to respect and care for our land and develop knowledge of Bunurong culture.
We look for opportunities to involve local indigenous specialists in all that we do.
Bunurong Elder, Mark from the Bunurong Land Council led our families in a smoking ceremony to welcome new families and retunring families onto Bunurong land on which we live, work and play. The children created a fabulous mural with Angie Cleaver, a local Indigenous artist and children will have more incursions with Angie, thanks to the Community Grant we received from Bayside City Council.
We
• visit the Royal Botanic Gardens in South Yarra and Cranbourne
• hold regular story circles in our own custom-designed garden, incorporating Bunurong langauge and
• we seek daily experiences engaging Bunurong inspired activites learned from Mark, Angie and Jaiden (from Bunjils Bik) in our indigenous garden and often walk to Elsternwick Primary School to visit their indigenous garden.
Our educators brought back new learning from Balnarring Bundjil’s Nest conference – thanks to grant funding from Bayside City Council and Bendigo Bank Community Grants to support continuous learning. (The Bundjil Nest Project are a team of educators and teachers committed to Reconciliation.)
We created our outdoor learning space for a sustainable environment.
We are very proud of the outdoor learning environment which we designed with children, families, Indigenous professionals with Jenn Reed, Educational Landscape Designer, Urban Discovery.
The garden’s design was underpinned by the belief that to grow into adults who will care for the environment and work to be sustainable, children need to have real and sustained experiences in a natural environment in mind.
We have a beautiful natural space that reflects the Indigenous plants of our area and plants that were important to the Bunurong of the Kulin Nation.
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For help with enrolments, please contact our Enrolments Officer nbkenrolments@gmail.com