St Joseph's Primary School Communication

Cultural Diversity

A Special Space for Prayer, Reflection & Community

Our students are absolutely loving the peaceful prayer and reflection time in our newly developed Spiritual Garden. This beautiful space has truly come to life thanks to the creativity and dedication of our school community.

A huge thank-you to Brad West, renowned Indigenous artist, whose incredible carving skills brought powerful symbols into the garden — including Bunjil the eagle, clapping sticks, an eternity knot, a cross, a boomerang, and a beautifully crafted dove seat. His work adds a deep sense of culture, story and spirit to the space.

Our students also played a big role, designing artwork for the terracotta pavers and planting native plants throughout the garden. Their pride in seeing the finished space is wonderful to witness!

The new deck and seating make it the perfect place to pause, reflect, and enjoy the beauty around us.

We’re so proud of this collaborative project and excited to see how it continues to grow—just like the young people who helped create it.

Celebrating the Lunar New Year 2025

Lantern Village - Multicultural Place 2025

Discover the lantern village in Multicultural Place, a temporary installation that features illuminated illustrations. Students from various schools in Springvale were invited to create artwork that celebrated Lunar New Year, and what made is a special time of year for them.

From wishing trees to dragons, dumplings to moon cakes there was plenty of creativity!

Special thanks to the students and staff at:

Spring Valley Primary School – Valley and West campus
St Joseph’s Primary School
Heatherhill Primary School
Springvale Rise – Springvale and Heights campus

Selected artwork will also be displayed in Mitchell Hall, Springvale Community Hub from 13 January – 13 February

Art Mural 2024, Year 6 Leave their Mark

During Term 4 week 2-3, an artist named Kyle Brightside came to our school for a visit.

There were 2 sessions we had to take before we did the actual painting, a mural, on our boys and girls bathroom walls.

We brainstormed ideas with Kyle, who is an amazing artist to see what we wanted in our mural.

Throughout the second session, we learned how to use spray paint. We had a little play around with the spray cans and painted on canvases that we took home. It was a wonderful experience, and it opened many opportunities for us to learn strategies and different ways to paint.

We then had some fun learning how to spray paint on canvases to get a better understanding of how to paint.

Kyle helped with the outlining of the birds and flowers and then we started to paint. At first, it was plain and boring but after we painted each spot, it was soon filled with lots of colour. The results were delightful!

The week the year 6’s have experienced has been amazing with it being very packed full of ideas! Of course, we would like to thank Mr Brew and Kyle for working with the year 6’s and putting lots of hard work into making this a lovely week for the seniors of the school!

Diya, Ashley & Nancy

VID_65600709_175016_665.mp4

St Josephs Primary School Springvale Mural Design Options.pdf

From Symbols to Stories: Learning Aboriginal Culture

First Nations artist N’dene Riley has left a lasting impact at St Joseph’s Primary School in Springvale through a 10-week Reconciliation art program that combined creativity, culture and learning.

Working with students from Prep to Year 6, Riley guided them to learn about Aboriginal traditions, storytelling and symbolism. Inspired by her teachings, Year 1 and 2 students created two giant serpents displayed along the school windows, filled with their own Indigenous symbols. Prep students decorated totem poles using bright Posca paint pens, while Year 6 students designed graduation mosaics representing meaningful memories and experiences of Aboriginality.

Riley said the process gave students the courage to see themselves as artists and to learn through experience rather than instruction alone. By sharing stories from her Six Rivers and Parrdarrama Pungenna heritage, she encouraged students to ask questions and connect learning with memory and meaning.

The project helped students understand Aboriginal culture through hands-on art, leaving both the artworks and the learning experiences as a lasting legacy at the school.

“It’s almost like a big gallery – you have a bit over here and a bit over there.”

What is happening in our local enviroment at this time of the Year? (Wurundjeri Calendar)

You might have noticed a few changes in the weather and the environment lately.

For example the days are getting longer and warmer, even if the nights are still cold. The Silver Wattle, has started to flower, the first of the wattles to do so. The caterpillars of the common brown butterfly feed on grass and at night, male koalas bellow.

In the garden, it is a good time to start growing tomatoes, capsicums and potatoes and make sure that we think about some strategies to protect our broccolis, kale and cabbages from the cabbage white butterflies and caterpillars.

Activity:

Have a look in your garden or backyards see how many of these seasonal markers you can find

- A flowering wattle tree - flowers blooming

- Magpies swooping - caterpillars or butterflies

- Moss or mushrooms sprouting between rocks

Seasons (Wurundjeri Calendar)

April-July Waring (wombat)

Misty mornings and cold, rainy days.

Days are short and nights are long

Wombats seen during the day seeking sunshine.

Moth and fungi by the creek

August Guling (orchid)

Cold weather eases.

Wattle and orchids blooming

Common brown butterfly caterpillars feed at night

Males koalas bellow at night (BBC News Koalas bellow with unique voice organ - YouTube).

Sept-Oct Poorneet (tadpole)

Temperatures rise but rain continues.

Pied currawongs calling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdQrtG9aGZE

Yam daisies flowering.

Days and nights are of equal length.

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