Proud Bundjalung, Kamilaroi woman, and advisor to NSW's Curriculum Reform program, Paige Coe brings together her expertise in education, art, culture and storytelling, to create meaningful artwork that is now featured across curriculum resources for families.
Coe is a Curriculum Reform Advisor at the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) working with the Aboriginal Education Team on NSW Curriculum Reform.
The NSW Curriculum Reform program is the first comprehensive review of the primary and secondary curriculum in 30 years.
NESA's Statement of Equity Principles is central in forming the curriculum's purpose and values. The statement positions inclusion and accessibility as key educational values, acknowledging that NSW students come from diverse cultural, linguistic, social, economic, geographic and family backgrounds.
As the first member of her family to achieve her Higher School Certificate and complete a university degree, Coe is using her knowledge through art in the development of NESA's new Parent Guides making connection between a child's classroom learning and how they can be supported at home.
Coe is doing this through her art, which is being featured across Parent Guides, to support families understanding changes to new syllabuses.
The designs capture a cultural narrative for each learning area, sharing a story about how that knowledge is learned and shared from an Aboriginal perspective.
Coe says she is proud of her artistic contributions which combine traditional artistic methods with new digital technologies.
"Art has been in my life as far back as I can remember. Our dining table would be covered in canvases, bowls, plates, boxes, kangaroo skins, where my dad would sit and paint for hours. We would visit my aunty and her house would be the same. We'd sit around the table having a cuppa and watch her paint and share stories."
"Watching them work taught me a lot - their patience and perfection for placing the dots, what they mean and listening to the stories of our areas. We have connections with the rivers - the rivers were always a big thing for our family," Coe said.
Representation matters - and it was Coe's father, as well as a long line of strong matriarchs and her great grandfather, Jack Patten, one of Australia's leading civil rights activists - who empowered her to pursue a career in education, particularly Aboriginal education.
"I want our kids to be seen, heard and acknowledged for who they are as an Aboriginal person.
"The artwork in our Parent Guides aim to show children, students and their parents that they can see themselves reflected within the syllabus, and that change in the curriculum is here," Coe said.
Under the Curriculum Reform program, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledges, Histories and Cultures help build the foundations of syllabus content.
NESA is working in partnership with Aboriginal Communities and supporting teachers, schools and schooling sectors to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal children and young people.
"It is extremely important to me to continue what I have been taught and pass on the stories of our culture.
"Art to me is symbolic. All parts of the artwork have meaning and are connected.
"We know a lot of our kids don't have that cultural identity of who they are and where they come from. We want our students to be able to learn and interact with local knowledge and content, and for our teachers to embrace it.
"Everyone can learn something from this."
View Coe's artwork in NESA's Parent Guides available in the Teaching and Learning Support materials tab for all published syllabuses on the NSW Curriculum website.
