NAIDOC 2025. Maclean High School.
Week 10, the last week of Term 2, was a busy week for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. As a tradition, we always celebrate NAIDOC Week before the official start of NAIDOC as a positive way to end the term before the official celebrations that occurred this year from 6th- 13th July.
On Monday, 30th June, our Aboriginal Boys Dance group went to Yamba Public School and performed two dances as part of their NAIDOC assembly, the Cleansing Dance and the Hunting Dance. Our dancers then ran a workshop on making beeswax wraps for the students in Stage 1. Beeswax wraps are a fantastic way of eliminating plastic waste in lunchboxes and are a fitting example of making a sustainable product that you can use. The students in Stage 1 selected their material for the wrap, and the Maclean High School students put the material in a hot mixture of beeswax and jojoba oil. The Stage 1 students selected their material, and they lined up for the Maclean High Students to put the material in the hot mixture. When it was cool enough, they showed the Stage 1 students how to smooth out the wrap so it could be used in lunchboxes. Our Maclean High students worked hard throughout the day, creating over 120 wraps for the Stage 1 students to take home.
On Tuesday, 1st July, Maclean High School had its annual NAIDOC Celebration Assembly. This was a whole school assembly with invited guests from the community. After the principal’s address and the Welcome to Country, the students were treated to two dances, one from the contemporary dance group who performed a dance to the music Treaty by Yothu Yindi and the other from the Aboriginal Boys dance group who performed the Hunting Dance. Several Aboriginal students were then acknowledged by the school for their ongoing contribution to the school in terms of culture and leadership in line with the NAIDOC theme, The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy.
The music group performed two songs, My Future by Billy Eilish and a cover version of Troy Cassar-Daley’s River Boy sung by Antwone Quinlin Randall, Troy’s nephew – a very proud moment for his family.
The school was then asked to participate in a quiz, testing everyone’s knowledge of Aboriginal Histories and Culture on a national, state and local perspective. It was an elimination quiz; for each question, you had to put your hands on your head or your hips. Twenty questions later, the group of 700 was down to 16 competitors. It was a huge amount of fun, and congratulations to those students who won canteen vouchers.
After recess, Year 7 students participated in some workshops organised by the Year 12 Aboriginal Studies class, where students were shown Aboriginal artefacts, participated in another quiz and did some art activities.
Story Submitted by Liza Hamilton from Maclean High School, Published in September, 2025.