Last year, a couple of students who attended cultural group came up with the idea to design a T-shirt that would have art work on it that was created by our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The students went through the Design Thinking Process and began by brainstorming what they felt was important to have on the T-shirts. They spoke about the purpose for the T-shirt and when and where it could be worn.
The students spoke with Marie about their ideas to see if it was possible to produce a school top that could be worn at school that signifies their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Marie was very supportive of the students’ idea but knew there were a lot of steps to still work through before they could achieve their final result.
The students were very excited and started designing prototypes. They worked in small groups with our CPSW, Viv Amoy to design and paint individual pieces of art work which would be a part of the final design. Viv and Jake Burgoyne (our previous ACEO), worked collaboratively to merge ideas from the students’ previous brainstorming session to develop an overall design for the T-shirt and presented this to the students. All of the students loved this design, so they met with Marie to show her the final product. She also loved the art work, but informed the students that they would need to get approval from Governing Council if they wanted to have the tops as part of the school uniform.
Some students presented the final sample to the parents and staff on Governing Council to seek permission to move on to the next stage. Governing Council agreed and this allowed the go ahead to have the design printed on to tops that could be worn as part of the school uniform.
Last term, the tops arrived and we have been wearing them proudly around the school, receiving many positive comments. We said a big thank you to Viv at assembly, as she spent many, many hours perfecting the design ready for printing. This has been such a big project and the students who were involved in the process are very proud of this achievement.
