The Hamilton Public School Plan 2018–2020 targeted Aboriginal Education as part of its third strategic direction. As a result, an Aboriginal SLSO (Jon Morris) was employed and as part of his role, established an Aboriginal Action Team (ACT). In 2018, 22 students were part of this team, which allowed students to learn about and celebrate their culture and improve cultural awareness across the school.

Students were encouraged to work with the ACT and with their families to write their own Acknowledgement of Country, which they could present in weekly assemblies. The sentences from each child’s Acknowledgement were combined to form the Hamilton Public School Acknowledgement of Country. Students were driven by staff to locations of their choice to be filmed reciting their parts of the Acknowledgement, which was shown to the whole community on Presentation Day 2018. It was a proud day for the whole community.

Contributed by Meredith Lindsay from Hamilton Public School. Published in 2019.