Monday, November 19, 2018

Hooray for History!

Last term, our class took part in the National History Challenge, which set students the task of researching and presenting an information product based on a 'turning point' in Australian history.

This could have been anything, like when women were given the vote, or Australia entered the Great War, or when we became a federation in 1901.

Our students were allowed to choose whether they worked alone or as a team. Some chose to create museum exhibits, while others designed their own web page, and others wrote essays on their chosen topic.

The standard of work was outstanding and we sent off a number of entries for consideration. Here is an example of just one of our outstanding entries submitted - this was by Fearne and Samara, who researched the life of David Unapon, who invented many things, including the electric shearing hand piece.

After several weeks of nervous waiting, the winners of the competition were finally announced. We were very pleased to learn that two of our students - Megha and Sandra were both finalists (out of many hundreds of entries) with their individual websites on the dismissal of Gough Whitlam and women's right to vote. Both girls were invited to Applecross Senior High School recently, to be awarded their finalist certificates and to learn if they had won the 'big' overall prize!

Alas, the girls didn't manage to be an overall winner, but we are still very proud of them for their amazing efforts. Well done, ladies - you might be historians of the future!


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Year 6 Camp to Kalgoorlie

We're baaaaaaack!

What a week it was! The Year 6 students spent last week exploring the Goldfields, travelling to Kalgoorlie/Boulder and Coolgardie.

After a brisk seven hour trip on the Prospector, the students (along with a small gang of intrepid adult supervisors) muscled our luggage to the Kalgoorlie Camp School, which would be our base for the next four days.

We all had a wonderful time. The students were kept very busy engaged in a variety of activities, including:

  • panning for gold
  • exploring the Superpit - an engineering marvel
  • visiting the Boulder and Kalgoorlie town hall
  • Exploring Coolgardie
  • Swimming at the Kalgoorlie town pool
  • walking through Warden Finnity's house
  • Visiting the Hannan's North mining museum
  • Visiting the Royal Flying Doctor's base 
Apart from the educational stuff, we all had fun playing games, taking part in a quiz night, and eating lots of food. 

When we finally arrived back in Perth at 9.45pm on Friday night, we were all exhausted but have memories that will undoubtedly last forever. 

Check out some of the photos below. More will be added as I work out how to download them from my phone! Also, Mr Meachem has taken (literally) thousands of pics, which will be placed on the school blog within the next few days, so check them out!