Sadadeen Primary wins Chief Minister’s Award

Sadadeen Primary School are the recipients of the Chief Minister’s Award for Excellence in the Public Sector in the category ‘Creating Opportunities for NT Children and Families’.

Errol, Jamahl and Julias are students of Sadadeen Primary that were at a community breakfast earlier this year. Pic: SATRIA DYER-DARMAWAN

Sadadeen Primary School are the recipients of the Chief Minister’s Award for Excellence in the Public Sector in the category ‘Creating Opportunities for NT Children and Families’.

The school received the award for the work they have done around embedding trauma informed positive behaviour support across their school.

Elizabeth Verstappen, Principal of Sadadeen Public School, said the school was ecstatic upon receiving the award.

“We have worked hard over the past few years to create a school community that looks at that relationship between learning, belonging, safety and culture and the nurturing of children,” Ms Verstappen said.

“That has been done through a whole school approach using trauma informed practice.”

Ms Verstappen said the school changed their approach to learning a few years ago to cater for the needs of children suffering from intergenerational trauma, or those who were living in difficult situations.

“We were looking at not a lot of successful learning and we realised we needed to start doing something different,” she said. “We looked at play based learning and creating spaces where kids were safe, because that whole safety aspect is very important for our children. We’ve got calming therapy rooms and we’ve got a school counsellor.

“We had to acknowledge that academic learning comes after that sense of safety and by doing that our learning has improved remarkably.”