What begins in early July as a week-long celebration of Indigenous culture (NAIDOC week) always concludes with a significant theme such as Because of Her-We Can (2018) or Voice, Treaty, Truth (2019) leaving a great impression on all people.

Another great NAIDOC week concluded this Term of Week 2, inspired by the theme Heal Country — Heal our Nation 2021.

On Monday we had the much-anticipated Staff versus Student basketball game where, of course, the students came home with a win (as always), but it’s not about the win. Instead, we played in the Spirit of Reconciliation. On Tuesday, we had a panel of invited guests join us and to speak to us about ‘Racism’ where questions of particular derogatory terms were discussed and reiterated to not be mentioned at all in the community. On Wednesday, we had mural artists come in and paint the old Junior School power station for the remainder of the week, which was impressively painted up at the end of the week. That following afternoon we had Middle School students compete against the teachers in Volleyball, and finally, on Thursday, we concluded NAIDOC week with a whole school assembly, attended by the Honourable Ben Wyatt and all Indigenous girls from Penrhos College.

It was a spectacular day where proud Indigenous boy Jesse Motlop unveiled the 1^st AFL Football jersey, after the assembly, all our invited guests were led to the staff room where we had a delicious morning tea, discussing how awesome the week was and what can we do in the future to help protect Indigenous rights and how we can move forward hand in hand not just as an Aquinas community, but as an Australian community.

• Tremaine Baxter-Edwards, Year 9