NAIDOC Week 2026: 50 years of deadly

Did you know that 2026 marks five decades of celebrating NAIDOC Week, a week dedicated to amplifying and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures? While this is but a drop in the ocean on the timeline of 60,000-plus years of continued living culture that we as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities celebrate as a people, it is certainly a milestone worth celebrating! NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

50 years of deadly is both a reflection and a declaration. It acknowledges the strength it has taken to reach this milestone, not by chance, but because generations of people refused to be silenced. It recognises the organisers, artists, activists and communities who carried NAIDOC forward year after year, ensuring it remained grounded in culture and community.

NAIDOC 2026.

Every one of the past 49 NAIDOC themes has marked a significant moment in Australia’s history, and this year’s theme, ‘50 years of deadly’, provides us with a platform to reflect on all of them as a collective movement to amplify Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices.

The official NAIDOC Week Education Resources 2026 were developed for ABC Education by educators at Culture is Life, under the guidance of Aunty Professor Lynette Riley AO, Co-chair of the National NAIDOC Committee.

The resources highlight this year as a unique opportunity for educators to explore key moments across five decades of NAIDOC Week history. This includes land rights, the Stolen Generations and Reconciliation, alongside the music, art and culture that have shaped Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories.

While this may seem like an enormous task for educators to capture in their classrooms, it is also an exciting one, as this year’s theme provides such an open-ended space upon which to frame our engagement.

So, where should we start?

I suggest starting with the 2026 NAIDOC poster. The poster can be downloaded from the NAIDOC website, with hard copies also available from Target stores across Australia. Target is supporting the distribution of the National NAIDOC Week poster for the fourth year in a row.

This year’s poster artwork, Paralpi, was created by Zaachariaha Fielding, a proud Yankunytjatjara man from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia. Zaachariaha is also widely recognised as one of the country’s leading contemporary First Nations artists and musicians through the acclaimed music duo Electric Fields. Of his artwork, Zaachariaha says:

Paralpi is about movement — movement through generations, through memory, through song and story. It speaks to the strength our people carry and the beauty of culture continuing to evolve while staying deeply connected to who we are.

While this quote from National NAIDOC Co-Chair Steven Satour captures the essence of ‘50 years of deadly' so beautifully:

Fifty years of NAIDOC Week represents fifty years of visibility, resistance, pride and deadly achievement. Zaachariaha’s work feels both deeply cultural and unmistakably contemporary — which is exactly what NAIDOC represents today. It honours where we’ve come from while boldly stepping into the future.

Using this year's poster as a learning provocation

Educators can use the poster as a learning provocation by treating it as a visual 'entry point' that invites children to wonder, talk, and explore, not just something to display on the wall. In the early years, this might look like linking the poster to children’s play in one of the following ways:

Art table: focus on the colours, patterns and emotions evoked by the poster.
Small world and sensory play: add figures, fabrics, and natural objects to represent community and Country.
Dramatic play: role-play community gatherings, music, or dance inspired by what they see.

You could extend provocations into broader learning by mapping the Country of the artist; where are the APY Lands? Where are we? What Country do we live on?

Download poster and resources

Exploring then and now through 50 years of posters

Moving on from this year’s poster, educators can also explore previous years through the online NAIDOC Poster Gallery. These posters provide a rich way to look at NAIDOC across the past 50 years.

Invite children to notice which posters stand out to them, then explore some of these more deeply by talking together about the images, colours, symbols and words they can see. Because ‘50 years of deadly’ invites us to look at the platform of NAIDOC across the years, as well as its role today and into the future, it is a great opportunity for early educators to introduce ideas about time, change, identity, and culture. It also offers a chance to reflect on the concept of ‘then and now’.

Here are a few developmentally appropriate ideas for engaging children:

Create a floor timeline using string or paper, placing posters in order from oldest to newest. Invite children to walk along the timeline and talk about time using words such as ‘long ago’, ‘recently’ and ‘today’.
Recreate colours and textures through sensory play. Invite children to explore the colours, tones, patterns and textures they notice in different posters using collage, natural materials, fabric, paint, clay or other loose parts.
Add sound to the posters by choosing a few posters and asking children, ‘If this poster had a sound, what would we hear?’ Children might explore body percussion, clapsticks, voice, or sounds from nature such as wind, rain or thunder. This can support children to reflect on how the poster makes them feel, before talking together about what the artist may have been expressing through their work.

Exploring 'What makes me deadly'

You might also like to focus on the word ‘deadly’, as a part of this year’s NAIDOC exploration. Many children might be unaware that from an Aboriginal context, the word ‘deadly’, means something really good, strong, and amazing.

You could explore this word through identity exploration of ‘what makes me deadly?’. Invite children to reflect on their strengths. Celebrate this through artwork, song or dance.

There is a great book called My Deadly Boots, by Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler, which is a picture book about inner strength, confidence and belonging. The authors offer free teaching notes you may like to explore. You can also watch an online reading of this book here. This book connects strongly to the NAIDOC Week theme because it celebrates what it means to be “deadly” - strong, proud, confident, and full of culture. The story shows that “deadly” is not about things we wear or own, but about who we are inside, our identity, and the strength we carry from family, community, and culture.

For early years settings, this year’s NAIDOC theme, 50 years of deadly, offers far more than a commemorative milestone. It provides a powerful opportunity to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures, and voices into everyday learning in meaningful, age-appropriate ways. Through posters, stories, art, movement, and play, educators can support children to see that “deadly” is not just a word, but a living expression of pride, strength, identity, and connection to Country.

Remember, when we engage in NAIDOC with children, we are not only teaching about NAIDOC, we are ourselves participating in its ongoing story; a story of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resilience, strength, cultural pride and connection.