What a busy time it has been for the HSIE department

YEAR 10 EXCURSION - SYDNEY JEWISH MUSEUM  

It was an early and bleary-eyed start for Year Ten History students for their Jewish Museum excursion, with many having awoken before five o’clock to arrive to school on time.

After an uneventful bus ride to Sydney’s city center and a quick break in the park to have something to eat, students entered the Sydney Jewish Museum to begin their tour. After having been divided into groups, the Year Ten students had the privilege of being accompanied on their tour of the museum by dedicated volunteer staff, of whom many were Jewish themselves.

The museum has a vast collection of personal artifacts donated by the Jewish community, ranging from religious items to smuggled personal effects that accompanied Holocaust survivors through many of the trials and tragedies they endured in those years. Much of what students had learnt in class was, through this collection, made far more tangible than could have been possible otherwise.

Many students recounted following the excursion the excellent capability of the volunteers being able to combine the displays of the museum and their own personal histories and interpretations to bring the events of the Holocaust to life, from its early days to the insidious scenes of Auschwitz that inhabit the collective conscious of the Australian public.

Following this, students were immediately directed to listen to the story of a Holocaust survivor. Students listened to Andrew, who, with great detail and poise, told the story of his family. Originally from Hungary, Andrew recounted the lives of his mother and father, before his father was tragically killed in a forced labour battalion. After telling the story of he and his mother’s escape from Europe, Andrew spoke of his step-father’s experiences in Auschwitz, cementing for the students the far-reaching consequences of the Holocaust. No single member of his family escaped its impacts.

Throughout the excursion, the students of St Johns conducted themselves with all the dignity and respect that was expected of them. Their teachers greatly appreciated and commend the students for the manner in which they approached each aspect of the museum experience with polite sensitivity, and reflection.

On Wednesday the 30th of October Year 10 Geography headed off for a field study at the local Ben’s Walk. They were very excited as the previous group were unable to attend due to weather conditions. As part of the Australian Curriculum students will be learning about Environmental Change and Management and Human Wellbeing in their Year 10 Geography classes.. Students undertook a range of fieldwork activities related to the site in order to gain experience in conducting fieldwork and to complement their in class learning with real life examples.

STAGE 4 - A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

This semester Year 7 and 8 conducted a personal interest project looking at a number of areas in the curriculum. Topics included the following:

• The Vikings 
• Medieval Europe
• The Ottoman Empire 
• Renaissance Italy
• Angkor/Khmer Empire 
• Japan under the Shoguns 
• The Polynesian expansion across the Pacific
• Mongol expansion 
• The Black Death in Asia, Europe and Africa 
• The Spanish Conquest of the Americas
• Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples, Colonisation and Contact History

The level of the display was amazing and it was really nice to see staff also get into the spirit.

Mrs Sophie Daley