In 2023 and 2024, Year 5 and 6 engaged in an appreciative inquiry into how we can enhance unity within our School through the development of House Group identities. Through this process we recognised that a strong identity can promote a sense of belonging and by developing House identities we could further build this within our school. It was also identified that our current house groups did not have a clear identity and this may cause students to lack connection to their House Group. This was something that we wanted to take action on for the betterment of our community.

We recognised that it was important that the new identities were meaningful to our community and represented the students and families of our School. To achieve this we engaged in an appreciation process where we considered many elements of what makes our school so special. Some of these included:

• Our School values and beliefs.
• Our connection to First Nations People and the traditional owners of this land, the Ngunnawal people.
• The history of our school.
• The diverse identities of our students, staff, families and community members.

We engaged with a range of community members including staff and families to ensure we considered a range of perspectives. We also consulted with our First Nations Families through our Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group and with Ngunnawal Elders Aunty Caroline and Aunty Jude to ensure that Frist Nations culture, tradition and meaning was embedded into these identifities in an authentic and respectful way. 

We used the knowledge that we gained in this appreciation process to develop new House Identities that have now been launched. Each house has an associated Ngunnawal name, school value, earth element, colour and animal symbol. For the next four weeks we are excited to share a story of each house group in the Newsletter. 

Maliyin House

Maliyan is the Ngunnawal word for wedgetail eagle.

Maliyin, a symbol of creation and spirituality to the Ngunnawal people, is the shining symbol of this house. Maliyin house proudly wears the colour gold and leads with the value of faith under the golden light of the sun.

Like the sun, Faith is our guiding light through life that leads us to make decisions guided by our Christian values and the teachings of Jesus.  Just as the sun's warmth and light illuminates the world, faith has the power to illuminate our lives with hope, inspiration, and purpose. The light of the sun can pierce through even the darkest of clouds and this parallels the capacity of our faith to guide us through life's darkest moments. At Holy Trinity we are committed to following the guidance of our Faith in becoming global citizens who are committed to taking action for the betterment of our community and wider society.