Page 1904 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 June 2021
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The response read as follows:
Dear Mr Duncan
Thank you for your letter about e-petition No. 2-21, lodged by Mrs Elizabeth Kikkert MLA and received by the Assembly on 30 March 2021, regarding the resumption of the teaching of French at Belconnen High School.
The Australian Curriculum is a world-class curriculum and is delivered in all ACT schools. Languages are one of the eight learning areas delivered under the Australian Curriculum. The choice of languages delivered in ACT public schools is made by the principal in consultation with the school board and the community.
Language education programs require a consistent teacher to deliver the program and sustain student engagement. Belconnen High School faced significant challenges with retaining and recruiting French and Indonesian teachers; this meant students were not able to engage. Recruiting suitably qualified specialist language teachers is a global challenge. The ACT Government has taken steps to address this challenge through a specialist recruitment drive.
In 2018 Belconnen High School introduced Aboriginal Languages of our region, as the language course, ‘Connecting to Country’.
Through learning the original languages of Australia all students develop a deeper appreciation of the nature and diversity of languages and cultures. Students acquire knowledge and skills necessary to learn and understand an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language, culture and Country.
The students learn Aboriginal language and culture from each Country, beginning with the area where students live and work, Ngunnawal Country. Students then investigate and learn about our surrounding regional Countries of Ngarigo, Gundungurra, Yuin and Wiradjuri.
Each Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language is unique to the Country/Place on which it arose. It gives voice to the landscapes, thoughts and ways of seeing and interpreting the world. When the language of the land is spoken, it brings together all of the elements of the landscape and its people. It encompasses the relationships of these people with one another and with the landscape, past, present and future. The learning of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language incorporates the realities of its people and facilitates students’ deep engagement with knowledge, ways of being and ways of knowing. It develops in students an understanding of historical, current and ongoing connection to Country/Place and culture.
The ‘Connecting to Country’ course is written and delivered to the specifications of the Framework for Aboriginal Languages and Torres Strait Islander Languages of the Australian Curriculum Languages Framework under the Second Language Learner Pathway.
In the development of the Connecting to Country course, Belconnen High School consulted closely with the local student community, their families, Aboriginal
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