Teacher Wins Rising Star Educator Award

Congratulations to our own Roxy Bin Swani, who has been named a 2021 Rising Star by education magazine, The Educator.

Roxy Bin Swani (right).

Ms Bin Swani leads PLC Perth’s Gorna Liyarn Programme, the School’s Indigenous Scholarship Programme which currently has 39 students ranging from Years 7 to 12.

In nominating Ms Bin Swani, Head of Senior School Rebecca Watts said Ms Bin Swani was committed to seeing students take on new educational opportunities and create intergenerational change within their communities. She was an expert in transitioning students into PLC Perth. She meets with new students and their families in their hometowns and to create a positive transition to PLC.

Ms Bin Swani is an advocate for encouraging student voice and has organised celebrations for Reconciliation Week, NAIDOC Week, Close The Gap Day, and Sorry Day. This year she worked with students to arrange a special event to recognise the Black Lives movement and the issues facing Indigenous Australians. She has also organised Gorna Liyarn dance performances with a troupe of our Indigenous students performing at the College and for significant events outside of the College. The dance troupe helps to build the confidence of the students involved and allows them to celebrate their cultural as proud Indigenous women.

To encourage a better understanding of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander culture within the broader school community, Ms Bin Swani has developed and delivered a course for Year 11 and 12 students at the School that focuses on developing Indigenous cultural competency called the Aboriginal and Cultural Studies General. The course provides students with a safe space to have a conversation and gain an understanding of Indigenous history and culture (you can read more about the course here). Ultimately she hopes that it will spark students’ interest to continue their own journey learning about Australia’s First Nation’s people and how to be an ally.

Congratulations Ms Bin Swani. This is so well-deserved.

A full list of all the 2021 Rising Star Award recipients can be found here.