Project team

Rabeya is a Secondary educator with experience teaching in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth and Environmental Science. She has a strong passion for integrating STEM into students’ learning practices and currently is teaching at Moorefield Girls High School in Kogarah. During her time teaching Secondary science subjects, Rabeya has noticed a need for teaching resources that focus more on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content embedded in the curriculum. This project is an opportunity to work collaboratively with an amazing team of educators to create a number of resources that can be linked to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the NSW Science syllabuses, providing information and convenient lesson plans for teachers and student to access. Rabeya sees it as vital to create a greater understanding of the Aboriginal perspective in the vast history of Australia. It was particularly fascinating to discover how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have developed and refined knowledge about the world through observation, making predictions, testing (trial and error) and responding to environmental factors within specific contexts.

Damon Anderson is a Primary school teacher based at Marton Public School in the Sutherland Shire. With a passion for holistic teaching, he has completed his masters in Primary teaching, as well as having experience in learning support and working with children with special needs. Damon believes that in order for a student to feel welcomed and accepted in their class, it is important to focus on all areas of that students life including their ethnicity and cultural background which is why this project was very important to him. Damon’s desire for being on this project was to ensure that this project was suitable for every student and teacher alike. Born and raised in the Sutherland Shire, Damon believed it was important to tell a side of the story that is often overlooked and to increase the voice of the indigenous people in our area.

Gaye Braiding is currently a teacher at Field of Mars Environmental Education Centre and NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education. Gaye has a passion for history, geography and the environment that she shares through teaching students, curriculum resource writing and teacher professional learning. Originally primary trained, Gaye works across K-12. She has created a wide variety of resources for the NSW Department of Education and other government agencies in support of history, geography and living world science syllabuses. This project offered an opportunity to combine her passions and engage students in investigating and analysing sources to develop understandings of life and the environment at Kamay in 1770. She found that delving deeply into the journals and artworks created at the time to be particularly fascinating.

Theone Ellas is currently the HSIE K-6 curriculum advisor with the NSW Department of Education, Learning and Teaching Directorate. She has over 38 years' experience in NSW primary schools. Theone has a strong passion for history and geography, especially the cross-curriculum priorities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and Sustainability.

Theone supports teachers state-wide in implementing the history K-6 and geography K-6 syllabuses through teacher professional learning and creating quality teaching and learning resources. She knows that working with a highly talented team in the development of the this project and its resources will allow students and teachers to view and examine historical primary and secondary sources, from different perspectives during this pivotal time in Australian history.

Jordan is a Secondary educator based in the Sutherland Shire. She is in her sixth year of teaching and has extensive experience in an eclectic range of subjects including history, legal studies, business studies, commerce and dance. Throughout her teaching career she has gained experience in coordinating numerous whole school and statewide projects. In 2016 she was awarded ‘Significant Achievement as an Early Career Teacher’ in the Ultimo Operational Directorate as a result of her dedication to public school teaching and learning. Ever since engaging in an extensive historical investigation into the ‘history wars’ in high school, Jordan has had a passion for balancing the history books and trying to provide the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community the opportunity to voice their perspective. Jordan entered into this project as she felt it would be an important opportunity to assist Australians in truly understanding the original encounters upon the first contact and colonisation of Australia.

Sue French began her career in education in 1979 and served at principal level from 2002 to 2016 at Kaleen High School (ACT) and St Johns Park High School. Since 2016 she has worked as Strategic Projects coordinator for NSW Department of Education, Learning and Teaching, Secondary Education. In this role she led the development of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy, designed and led the team that delivered the Invictus Games Education Project, and leads the Endeavour: Eight Days in Kamay response to the 250th anniversary of the encounter between James Cook and the Endeavour with the Gweagal and Bidjigal of Kamay Botany Bay.

She is an experienced educator and leader. Her education career has been characterised by an ability to establish effective and creative school environments and more recently teams to create and deliver high quality policy and learning materials in education. The teams Sue has created and lead are regarded as models for collaborative practice, bringing together research, identified interests and professional knowledge and wisdom to build sophistication and depth into the work.

She is a Biripai woman.

Penny is an experienced Head Teacher Science and secondary teacher of chemistry and physics and a passionate facilitator of STEM. She enjoys the creative expression that resource writing allows and has pursued this in her current role of Project Officer at State Office in Parramatta. The opportunity to work collaboratively with teachers across KLAs and schools, with a focus on her own backyard of Kamay, attracted her to the project. Penny has found this project the embodiment of lifelong learning and the learning journey through the rich and diverse history, culture and knowledge of our first nation peoples profoundly satisfying.

Jenaya is a proud Kamilaroi woman who comes from a family of teachers. She is a Kindergarten teacher whose goal is to share her culture with her students and school community. Since beginning teaching, Jenaya has built a large focus on sharing Indigenous culture and this has been embraced at her school. Together with her group of Indigenous students, they refer to themselves as ‘One Mob’, and have been involved in various activities, events and opportunities at their school and within the wider community. Jenaya’s goal is for students and families to be proud of their culture and to have no shame. She also hopes to build the respect and acceptance of the Indigenous culture throughout the school community through involvement.

Jenaya strives to be an empowering leader who makes a difference and has a positive impact on each child’s life. She has been the recipient of a number of awards including the 2019 Aunty Fay Carroll Deadly Teacher Award and the 2018 Port Hacking Principal Network Director’s Early Career Teacher Award. One of the reasons Jenaya was involved in this project was to help spread the important message that Indigenous people have a voice, and that the events surrounding what happened at Kamay 1770 did not occur in the way that has been so commonly shared. She hopes that this project will push for the true perspective to be shared and respected by all Australians.

Bruce is a retired Mathematics teacher, with over 35 years experience in public high schools. He has a degree in Science from Sydney University, in which he majored in Pure Mathematics. He tries to bring the same rigour instilled during his studies of Mathematics to his love of History, in particular the history of the Endeavour voyage of 1768-1771, and all issues and events surrounding it.

Being of Wiradjuri descent, it is of special interest to Bruce that the Endeavour journals provide the first ever accounts of the Aboriginal people of the East Coast of Australia. He believes that in order to understand what occurred on 29 April 1770 and in the eight days that followed, one must look at the entire Endeavour voyage, from its genesis, through to each one of those eight days.

Caitlin is an experienced secondary educator. Passionate about adolescent education, she is trained as a HSIE, English and ESL teacher, and is currently working in the history faculty at Sydney Technical High School. She has a strong passion for student literacy, gifted education, and learning across the curriculum. Over the course of her career as a history teacher, Caitlin has recognised the increasing need to widen the discourse to include the Indigenous voice, and to raise questions of contestability around the information we consume. Caitlin was raised and still resides in the Sutherland Shire area and has visited Kamay Botany Bay National Park many times. This project was close to her heart because of this physical proximity and the cultural heritage of many of her students, colleagues and the community in which she lives. Caitlin has previously worked on other NSW Department of Education curriculum projects including the Invictus Games Education Project in 2018.

Sue is a writer and editor who specialises in the education market. Her books have been published world-wide and she is the recipient of the international Language Learners Literature Award. While she is best-known as a children's playwright, Sue also writes nonfiction, picture books, poetry and website resources. Sue spent many years on the editorial team of The School Magazine, the iconic literary publication loved by children everywhere.

Sue appreciates the power of story to educate, inspire and illuminate. She was drawn to this story-based project and has relished the opportunity to work with the team to share information and resources that will allow students, their teachers and all of us to balance the history books in a dynamic and engaging way.

Jan is the principal of Kamay Botany Bay Environmental Education Centre (EEC). Thousands of students visit the site at Kurnell every year to learn about the Gweagal (the Aboriginal people on the southern shore of Kamay Botany Bay) living there when James Cook arrived in 1770. The first contact between the Aboriginal people and members of the Endeavour is shared during an interactive role play with students.

Jan works closely with the local Aboriginal community to ensure that the student programs and resources are accurate and authentic. The EEC supports school communities in history, science and geography. Aspects of Aboriginal life and culture is shared during most programs. Supporting the team in the development of the resources for Endeavour Eight Days at Kamay has been inspiring and an honour for Jan.

Julie-Ann is a teacher at the Field of Mars Environmental Education Centre in East Ryde, Wallumedegal Country. She acknowledges and respects the Country where she conducts her outdoor classes. Teaching in nature provides engaging and authentic learning experiences that lead to greater awareness and depth in understandings and skills that inspire and motivate young people to act for the environment, to care for Country. A trained HSIE teacher, Julie-Ann is an experienced and award-winning curriculum resource writer producing online teaching resources for the NSW Department of Education, NSW and Federal Government institutions and the corporate sector. Her involvement in this collaborative project provided her a valuable opportunity to work with talented and inspiring educators to share different perspectives on thissignificant moment in Australia’s history. She hopes teachers and students are similarly inspired by the collection of resources available on the Endeavour – Eight days in Kamay site.