Starting school for Aboriginal children across the south western Sydney region is being made easier with a literacy and numeracy kit packaged in a cool new backpack.

The Bodallamu transition backpack (named from the Dharawal word meaning “a safe place for little children to learn”) is a culturally inclusive resource designed to smooth the preschool to Kindergarten transition for Aboriginal children.

The kit includes equipment such as pencils and pavement chalk, a library bag and drink bottle. Learning resources include name cards using the foundation font, Salisbury sight words, X-ray art Australian animal tracing cards and boomerang threading cards, colours and shapes. The activities are designed to develop children’s fine motor skills and their sense of identity.

Briar Road Public School’s Aboriginal education resource teacher Tammy Anderson, who is president of the Mil-Pra Regional Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, said the backpack gave students a sense of pride and ownership.

“A parent told me that her child didn’t take it off all day,” Miss Anderson said.

“There are things [activities] the kids can do independently as well as with family support.”

Miss Anderson initially created the kit four years ago for students at Briar Road Public School. The project was then taken up by the south western Sydney region’s Aboriginal education team and developed into the backpack program. Every Aboriginal preschool student in the region received the backpack at the end of 2007.

The backpacks contain a handbook, which offers advice for parents in supporting their children in their transition to Kindergarten, as well as regional contacts and a guide to education acronyms.

“It’s increased the parent’s appreciation and value of school readiness, which is really important in communities like ours,” Miss Anderson said.

Briar Road Public preschool teacher Lee-Ann Lowes said the kit developed skills students needed when entering Kindergarten, including writing their name on a miniature “whiteboard” in the kit, and threading a leather thong through holes in a cardboard boomerang.

“It makes their initial days in kindy easier,” Mrs Lowes said.

Preschool students from John Warby and Liverpool West (Coota-Gulla) public schools and the Ooranga-Wandarrah Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Centre’s Tharawal Preschool attended the official launch held last term.

Mary Chatfield, Ooranga-Wandarrah’s coordinator, said transition programs that allow preschoolers to visit the primary school they will be attending set the foundation for a good start in schooling.

“They have a better understanding of what school offers and what’s expected of them,” Ms Chatfi eld said.

“It’s good to see [preschool to Kindergarten] transition on everyone’s agenda.”