Four of our students are part of the 2024 Port Pirie SAASTA Academy – Ryan Mills, Antwan O’Brien, Gavin O’Brien and Lucy Farrows. This term they spent a week in Adelaide for the annual Santos Aboriginal Power Cup. During the week the students were privileged to hear from some Aboriginal leaders in various fields.

These included April Lawrie (Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People), Simone Tur (Flinders University Vice Chancellor), Justyce Manton-Coe (Mechanical Engineering student) and Viv Davey (Aboriginal Pathways).

Throughout the Semester points were accrued through SAASTA learning tasks and workshops finishing with the culminating event, the football carnival held at Alberton Oval.

This year both of our teams fought hard and came away with a few wins, a sense of belonging and many friendships.

A big thank you to the staff and students involved, specifically Judy Crosby-Woods (our amazing Aboriginal Secondary Education Transition Officer), Jamie Fricker (JPSS SAASTA Coordinator) and the whole JPSS staff team.

Often, the focus of Power Cup is on the football carnival – understandably given the excitement that surrounds the competition! The week also involves a range of different experiences and opportunities for our SAASTA students, which they have reflected on below.

SAASTA academy workshops: Port Adelaide Football Club came to John Pire and talked about all the requirements we needed to have to be able to go to Power Cup. We learned about respect, reconciliation and pride in our culture. We also went out and did some footy skills and played a mini game.

Think! Road safety campaign: An idea came up on how to promote road safety through making a video ad and it was filmed by the John Pirie Academy.

SAPC leadership day: The leadership day was held at Morphettville Racecourse and included workshops around careers pathways for our Stage 2 students and for the Stage 1 students, a workshop on equality in sport and education about domestic abuse and violence.

SAPC football carnival: The SAPC football carnival is where all the SAASTA academies come together and we play a 9-a-side football carnival for about a day and half. There are cultural experiences, careers expo and time to learn the cultural dance. This year, the carnival was held at Alberton Oval. On Thursday afternoon, we headed to Adelaide oval for a presentation ceremony and the Port Power AFL match. The two winners of both girls and boys teams play the grand final on Adelaide oval.

The team captains from each academy do a lap of the oval with the winning banner design. Then all students perform the cultural dance before the AFL game begins. The Port Adelaide Power Cup is also a reward to all the work and attendance and engagement to our learning throughout the year.

Cultural activities: The cultural activities included learning a story to be performed as a cultural dance to do on Adelaide oval. Also the leadership day with Aboriginal and Torres Islander Peoples sharing their stories, journeys and success to inspire us.

Students at all academies completed assignments that were to design artwork for our football guernseys and out academy banner. These artworks were about Nukunu country and stories as this is where our academy is located. We also reflected about our own land, animals, language and stories while creating our art.

Cultural performance: The cultural performance is where we learn a cultural dance and we perform it on the Adelaide oval before the game starts. This involves everyone who went to Power Cup.

Panel forum: The panel form was a whole bunch of speakers talking about their experiences. It was good to hear a lot of different stories but it was hard to sit and listen. It will be good to see future forums have the students split into groups to talked about the information, then swap and have some interactive activities.

Careers expo: We had exposure to a whole bunch of career information which gave us an opportunity to explore different pathways and different activities in a fun way. We also got to ask questions in a culturally safe way.