Students and staff with one of the new murals installed at Moree Secondary College. The artwork was developed with input from the school’s Junior Aboriginal Education Consultative Group. Photo: Moree Online News.
When Moree Secondary College amalgamated into a single Years 7 to 12 campus in 2024, it brought students together within a new school structure. But while the organisational change was complete, the campus itself had yet to fully reflect that new identity.
Students raised concerns about shared spaces that felt uninviting, along with a lack of prominent Aboriginal art around the school.
Principal Bethany Kelly said those conversations prompted staff to consider how the campus could better reflect the students who use it each day.
“We were looking at options as to how we could make it a more welcoming space than it was previously,” she said.
The result is a series of murals, entrance signs and large-scale wall wraps bringing Gamilaroi language, local imagery and the college’s identity into some of its most visible spaces. Students helped decide what those spaces would say and represent.
Language and leadership at the front gate
The centrepiece of the project is a welcome mural at the school entrance, developed by Aboriginal Education Officer Jaydee Picker with the school’s Junior Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG).
The Junior AECG provides Aboriginal students with an opportunity to contribute ideas and help improve aspects of school life. For the mural project, members discussed what they wanted visitors to see when arriving at the college and voted on the artwork and welcome message.
Ms Picker said students wanted Gamilaroi language to be one of the first elements visitors noticed.
“They wanted language to be the foreground of it, so the first thing you kind of see,” she said.
The mural incorporates a kangaroo, emu and goanna representing the school’s three houses, Bandaar, Yurandali and Dhinawhan.
Black swans were also included to represent the school’s Barayan Café, where some Junior AECG students work. Ms Picker said Barayan means black swan.
The wording received just as much attention as the artwork.
The Junior AECG considered six welcome messages. President Maverick Noakes and secretary Destiny Newman helped develop the wording before students voted on the version they believed best represented them.
Students also shaped the artwork itself.
When Ms Picker presented an early design, the group rejected it.
“I did a design and the kids said no, it was too childlike, so I had to come back with another design,” she said.
“They liked the more traditional artwork.”
The final design reflects that feedback, incorporating traditional-style patterns within the animal figures and drawing together elements from artwork already displayed elsewhere around the campus.
“It’s kind of taken artwork from around our school to combine it to make it more of a central kind of look,” Ms Picker said.
“So when you look at this artwork, you can be like, ‘Where does that come from? Is that a part of our school as well?’”
Bringing the campus together
The welcome mural became the starting point for a broader visual transformation.
Large wall wraps featuring local river imagery and the college’s three house identities now appear across the campus, including around the lift shaft, creating a consistent visual connection between different parts of the school.
Ms Kelly said the move from two houses to three had already become part of the college’s organisation, including its vertical roll-call structure, but there had been limited signage around the campus reflecting those identities.
“This is the beginning of the signage,” she said.
The work was partly funded through a School Infrastructure beautification project, with Moree Secondary College matching the funding needed to extend the installations.
Some pieces were produced as solid signs fixed to walls, while the larger designs were installed as printed wraps bonded to prepared surfaces.
A school that reflects its students
Ms Kelly said students had responded positively to the completed artwork.
“They loved it,” she said.
“They are very impressed with what it looks like, how much brighter it is, how much more inviting the space is.”
Ms Picker said the finished work had helped change the atmosphere around the school.
“I think it’s bright and colourful and makes everyone feel welcome to our school,” she said.
The murals may brighten walls and entrances, but they also tell the story of a school continuing to define its identity following its amalgamation into a single Years 7 to 12 campus.
In that process, students have done more than watch the changes happen around them. They have helped decide what visitors see when they arrive, what stories are represented across the campus and how their school presents itself.
