Bush School

Golden Hill Steiner School is situated on Bibbulmen/Menang Noongar Boodja (Country) and we are blessed with a beautiful bush environment only a short distance from the back gates of both our Early Childhood classrooms.

Once a week our Kindergarten to Class One children take part in a place-based Bush School Program that combines the Australian Steiner Curriculum, nature-based pedagogy and Indigenous (Noongar) frameworks of learning. These three streams weave seamlessly together to provide the basis for a rich programme of self-directed play, bush art and craft activities, song, verse, and story, based upon observation of the bush environment and its changes over the course of the six Noongar seasons.

This program has been designed to instil in the children a deeper sense of connection to Place, based in this profoundly living learning environment, while embracing Noongar learning perspectives.

The program, which began in 2018, strives to be relationally responsive to local Noongar protocol, working particularly closely with local Noongar Elder and community leader Eugene Eades and his family. Golden Hill kindergarten teacher and music specialist Bruce Anthony has worked with Eugene for the past decade on a range of education and music projects.

Over the school year the program follows the course of the six Noongar seasons, and activities, rituals, songs and stories have been developed in direct response to the seasonal changes that occur in the school and forest environment. The creek, with all its seasonal changes, is a central character in many of the stories and songs the children learn.

The program also incorporates Noongar language and names, as well as concepts that relate directly to the Bush School experiences. This deepens the children’s sense of reverence and wonder in response to the environment as they experience it. The children also learn through the example of adults, the values of Caring for Country, relating respectfully to local Noongar Elders and following protocol appropriate to their age.