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Outback House: School newspaper

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Girl watches men shear sheep
Outback House: School newspaper

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  5–6


Discover how a colonial squatter's children did their schoolwork. Join them in their 'classroom' and go with them on an excursion to the shearing shed.

Finding new and challenging educational things to do with the children was always a difficult task for a governess.

Governess Genevieve Yates was forced to leave Oxley Downs when she fell ill. A new governess, Fiona Schubert, has arrived to take over responsibility for the children's schooling.

As the shearing is in full swing at Oxley Downs, Governess Fiona takes her students on an excursion to the shearing shed, to interview the shearers about their work. The girls are going to write articles about their shearing excursion for a 'station newspaper'.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Think about the place where you do your schoolwork (at home or school). How do you think doing schoolwork might have been different in the past? What things about doing it now might be the same? Which of the things you use for schoolwork today did not exist in the 1860s?
  2. 2.What items do you see on the table? What else is this room used for? Why are the girls going on excursion? What instructions does governess Fiona give them about their interview questions? How do the shearers get the sheep's wool? What happens to the wool next? Why do the girls stomp on the wool in the bale?
  3. 3.Governess Fiona wants the girls to ask 'open questions'. Why? Write five 'open' questions you would have asked the shearers. Hint: start with words like 'how' and 'why'. Find Tom Roberts's painting called 'Shearing the Rams'. When was it painted, and what can it tell you about shearing in the 1860s? What do you think about the painting as a historical source?
  4. 4.Imagine you are a reporter writing an article about how wool production has changed over time. What sources might be useful? Use terms like 'wool production process Australia' to find out about wool production today. Try terms like 'history wool Australia' to find out about wool production in the past. Present your article in an interesting way.



Production Date: 2005


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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