Curriculum resources

The inspiring documentary film, The Last Daughter, follows Brenda Matthews, a proud Wiradjuri woman. As Brenda explores her sense of disconnection and uncovers the truth and trauma of her past as a stolen child, she also begins to reconcile her two families and two cultures. In this lesson, students explore the key messages of her story.

The histories we value help to determine how we create our future. In this lesson, students learn about the place of truth-telling in the process of reconciliation through The Last Daughter film. Students assess sources for accuracy, balance and cultural appropriateness to determine which are most likely to share truth or bias.

In The Last Daughter, Brenda Matthews explains that she and her siblings were taken from their parents after the NSW Assimilation Policy was abolished – stolen, while not technically part of the Stolen Generations. In this lesson, students learn more about this complex situation and explore its impacts on the identity of those affected.

Through clips from The Last Daughter documentary, students explore how the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families causes trauma to flow through generations, with serious long-term impacts. They research a specific event from the Healing Foundation timeline and share their findings.

In this lesson, students explore the need for reparations and concept of self-determination and why it’s important for the healing of First Nations Peoples. They examine child removal legislation. Students reflect on the story of Brenda Matthews, a proud Wiradjuri woman who was forcibly removed from her family at the age of two.

In the previous lesson, students examined previous and current child removal legislation, and explored the concept of self-determination. Through clips from The Last Daughter, students focus their learning on how Brenda Matthews's experience sits in reference to the overarching acts that governed families during her childhood.

In this lesson, students explore the concept of autonomy and consider the rights and treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples during the 1970s. Students connect this learning with the story of Nan Brenda, an Aboriginal woman whose children were taken from her, through clips from The Last Daughter.

In this lesson, students unpack the five elements of identity and culture that make them who they are. They consider First Nations perspectives to uncover the importance of culture, exploring the story of Brenda Matthews in the feature-length documentary, The Last Daughter. Students get creative with an identity collage.

In this lesson, students consider the many forms that family can take and the impacts that family has on personal identity. They reflect on the extended and varied family structures of proud Wiradjuri woman, Brenda Matthews, the central figure of the feature-length documentary, The Last Daughter.

The Last Daughter film is a powerful story because it shows the ways Brenda Matthews's families unite to begin to overcome the trauma they experienced due to government policies. In this lesson, students focus on each family's path to healing and consider what it means to be an ally to First Nations people.