In Week 9 of Term 1, from 25th to the 27th March, our Year 5 students had an incredible time at Beechworth Camp. This experience provided a fantastic opportunity to explore Australian history, develop social and emotional skills, and strengthen friendships.

The Year 5 students thoroughly enjoyed learning so much about Australian history as they participated in numerous activities such as:

• Gold Panning
• Honeybee Discovery Tour
• Telegraph Station
• Courthouse visit 
• Ned Kelly Walking Tour
• Burke Museum Experience
• Old Beechworth Gaol Tour
• Sweet Shoppe then Ice cream shoppe
• Cartoon Workshop

Throughout the camp, the children were asked to reflect on their experiences, below are some of their comments:

Nafas – "In the prison, the women did a lot of sewing, and some of the men had to break up granite."

Chase – "I learned about morse code here, and how the morse code machine looks like actually. The alphabet is only made out of dash and dots. A dash is the letter 'T' and a dot is 'E'." ‎

Sanvi – “I really liked how they described Ned Kelly’s lifestyle, his armour, and the judge’s wigs. I also found it interesting learning how women were not allowed to be part of the main court seating at the time. I liked how they included different perspectives in the story, such as Joey Byrne, Steve Hart, and Dan Kelly.”

Zaiden – “I learned how to make ice cream. First, they heat the sugar and milk to 60 degrees. Then, they put the mixture into a tub and place it in a machine to mix the ice cream. My favourite part was going into the freezer.”

Minza – Burke Museum: “During the Burke Museum experience, I learned that Tasmanian tigers became extinct in the 1800s. The last known one was a female, and she died in 1853.”

Agastya – “Ned Kelly and his gang killed 3 officers and was sent to the court. They were found guilty and then sent to the jail.‎”

Taarush – “The activity I found most interesting was the Beechworth Goal because it gave me information about how people were in gaol in the 1800s. It also gave me information about where Ned Kelly’s Mum’s cell was when she was there with an infant. I felt bad for her because it wasn’t fair to keep someone in gaol with their baby.”

Jahnavi – “I am really grateful we had this activity while we were at Beechworth. I was really intrigued that we got to find real gold. We got to experience the lives of the gold miners back in the days, and they came from different countries to try to get gold.” 

Isha – “In gold panning I enjoyed trying to find the gold, by putting water in the pan and shaking out all the rocks. If you see anything sparkle it means you have found gold.”