Nurturing Culture
As an addition to the requirements for all Early Childhood Education & Care services across Victoria and Australia, our service will embrace further initiatives in working towards reconciliation and being culturally aware, as this is at the forefront of Perridak Burron’s mission to provide culturally safe and rich learning environments for all children. Through this, our entire team of experienced educators will undertake training in various programs including;
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Cultural Awareness
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Embedding Aboriginal Perspectives into the Early Years Learning environment
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Employing teaching strategies of the ‘8 Ways of Learning’ to facilitate Aboriginal pedagogy within the program.
Perridak Burron embeds Aboriginal Perspectives throughout the learning environment, with the use of local artist artworks, furnishings, processes, practices, resources and materials. All cultural celebrations and historical moments are embedded within the program, alongside engaging community members into a collaborative learning journey.
Perridak Burron is open to ALL children and families across the Ballarat district. We embrace all cultures, celebrations, traditions and communities. We are an inclusive service that prides itself on showcasing Australia’s first nation’s peoples, whilst embracing and welcoming all other cultures into our wonderful early learning service.
Ngarrwa Dja
( Learning on Country )
Ngarrwa Dja, also known as Learning on Country, is an educational session held outdoors on country where our children are encouraged to investigate, explore, learn and play whilst connecting to the land in a natural setting.
All children deserve the right to ‘be’ in nature, with unstructured play. In a natural learning environment the children can explore the country on which we play, and connect with the local surroundings, while making new discoveries and learnings.
Teaching within nature, similar to the popular European based Bush Kinder has been in practice for over 10 years, however, teaching and learning on country has been a traditional child-rearing and educational practice for our Indigenous Australians for over 60,000 years. Our Aboriginal Elders have been teaching generations of children educational concepts (math, science, literacy) through connectedness to the land and its resources. Ngarrwa Dja is a program designed by Perridak Burron to provide all children with the opportunity to learn through, connect with and care for Country, through embedding Aboriginal perspectives and traditional land care practices.
The benefits of play and learning outdoors are endless. Children who spend more unstructured time outdoors in nature have reduced anxiety and stress, improved cognitive development, strengthened physical skills alongside improved emotional wellbeing. Through exploring, investigating and learning on Country, children will be supported in enhancing social, emotional and language skills.
Actively participating in nature play programs such as our Ngarrwa Dja, provides the children with the opportunity to be caretakers of Country, enabling a deep respect and understanding of the environment and land on which we live and play.
Bupup Balak Wayipungang initiative
Meaning: Helping / supporting the young kids
Ballarat & District Aboriginal Co-operative (BADAC), in conjunction with Perridak Burron Early Learning, will facilitate fortnightly cultural education sessions, led by BADAC’s Bupup Balak Wayipungang initiative Wayipungti (meaning Supporters). The initiative will guide and assist our Teachers and Educators to deliver kindergarten programs that are culturally safe, engaging and appropriate.
The Bupup Balak Wayipungang initiative will assist our program in:
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Enhancing access and participation of Koorie children in the kindergarten program
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Promote and assist in the delivery of educational programs that promote Aboriginal culture
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Support the attendance of Koorie children who are enrolled in our programs
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Encourage the involvement and participation of Koorie parents, families and carers in the development of educational programs
Provide non-indigenous children and families opportunity to engage in cultural learning and submersion
Elder Program
Perridak Burron Early Learning is a central place for our community where all families and community members are welcome to collaborate alongside us in guiding each child’s learning journey. Intergenerational learning is a way to consolidate the passing down of knowledge, wisdom and insight from generation to generation. At Perridak Burron we welcome our Elders of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous families to join our groups to share stories, music, traditions, experiences, activities and love. Each age group within Perridak Burron will embrace Elders from families once a fortnight to join the children in various settings including at the centre, alongside excursions, to our Ngarrwa Dja sessions and to celebrations.
Bush Tucker
Through providing wonderful hands on teaching and learning opportunities, all children at Perridak Burron will have access to creating, building, maintaining and exploring our bush tucker garden, situated in our playground area for children to access at all times.
Our Bush Tucker garden will provide our children with the wonderful hands-on learning and teaching opportunities to care for the environment, develop an understanding of biodiversity in a child-friendly manner and to experience the cycle of garden to plate.
Our garden will consist of edible indigenous plants such as lemon myrtle, midyim berry, lemon grass, red back Australian ginger, bush mint, murnong yam daisy and many more. The children of Perridak Burron will be involved in the lifecycle of garden from planting, maintaining and cooking the produce with our in house cook.
