Kids close the gap to create harmony
Health, happiness and harmony are great aspirations and South Hedland Primary School embraced these ideals recently, holding a whole school celebration of Harmony Day and Close the Gap Day in late March.
With Harmony Day saluting multiculturalism and Close the Gap Day working towards shrinking the divide between indigenous and non-indigenous health, kids across the school learnt many great ways to embrace both principles during the March 21 event.
Junior and senior blocks each rotated through a separate series of fun, interactive activities throughout the day.
Junior children focused on car safety, health and multicultural awareness, whilst senior students looked at topics like peer relationships and drug education.
South Hedland Primary School teacher Cherie Pearse said that such a day helps students better understand what is meant by “health” and learn what it means to take care of themselves and each other.
“It makes the students more aware of what they’re eating, what a drug actually is.
“In the senior block, we focused on legal and illegal drugs – that things like cigarettes, even though they’re legal, are still a drug and they still have the negative impact, which a lot of the kids probably aren’t aware of,” Mrs Pearse said.
Tackling these more serious topics at an upper primary level is something Mrs Pearse sees as a positive step for young people preparing for high school.
“Doing it at a primary school level helps them make those choices, so if they get into a situation where they are exposed to it themselves, they can make good choices.”
South Hedland Primary School is particularly multicultural, with an indigenous population of approximately 78% and one junior block activity involved creating a giant poster about health and understanding just how many cultures we have on our planet.
Some of the younger children who participated in the poster creation happily shared what they enjoyed about the activity.
Year one students Nyera and Frank loved colouring people from all over the world.
Fan of bananas and apples, Tyrell, said, “Healthy food helps you learn more, because if you just ate snacks, that wouldn’t be healthy.”
His peer Betty spoke of what it means to be part of a “Healthy mob”, saying, “A healthy mob always stays healthy together by keeping each other safe and healthy and looking after each other.”
South Hedland Primary School kids learn about health and harmony
Hedland kids create health and harmony
Tags: Echo, education, hedland, News, Pilbara, pilbaranews, Port Hedland
