I am continually amazed at the enthusiasm and love that our Year 7 boys show towards their study of History here at Joeys. Having said that, I shouldn’t be surprised as they are fortunate to have some amazing teachers whose passion for the subject can’t help but rub off onto the boys.

As you know, all the boys have now attended the Art Gallery of NSW as part of their History study. Ok … time to confess … my knowledge of history is not so great (and I greatly regret not having studied it at school). So, I thought I would turn to a far wiser source of information for this article … one of the boys. Below, Ben Smith (Putney) sums up the first few weeks of History and the excursion which the boys have all been on. Thanks to Ben for saving me on this one!

In history we have been on excursions, watched movies and played some educational games to make the term as fun as possible. So far what we’ve done is watch a movie on ‘’The Body in the Bog’’ , ‘’The Immortal Emperor’’ and ‘’Otzi the Iceman’’.

At the moment we are studying about Ancient Egypt and the great pharaohs. We have been set many small topic tests and have received one assignment on embalming King Tut which we are currently working on. The movies were informative and very interesting to watch and help us realise that this or that has or might have happened.

We went on an excursion to see the Real Life Terracotta Warriors at the Art Gallery of NSW. The “Warriors” were were discovered by a man working on a farm to build a well to retrieve water when he fell down a cave and stumbled into what is known as the “discovery of the century”. The excursion was intriguing as we saw for the first time the mysterious artefacts and jewellery  from ancient China. My favourite part of the trip was the fact that the terracotta warriors were positioned so that they were always staring at you with evil squinting eyes. All in all the excursion was a massive hit with the students and the visitors around us as they got to meet a Joe-boy for the very first time and were gobsmacked.

So far history has been exiting and new and I and all the other students can’t wait to find out what is in store for us.

Photo 1: The boys soak in the atmosphere of the Art Gallery of NSW.

Photo 2: Daniel Copping (Gladesville) and Hunter Currie (Lane Cove) play dress-ups at the Gallery.