SPOTLIGHT

YEAR 4 - First Fleet Memorial Park Excursion

Wonderful Wallabadah Excursion

Year 4 had an amazing, humid day in Wallabadah’s First Fleet Memorial Park on Friday 15th, November 2024. We had a fun bus ride there, ate a picnic lunch and did a cool scavenger hunt around the area. The reason for this excursion was to learn more about the First and Second Fleet. “The second fleet is known as the Death Fleet because lots of people died,” Mrs Beale said before we went.

First, we split the group onto the two buses that took us to Wallabadah. We sat with my friends and were sooooooooooo excited for this excursion. After 45-60 minutes on the bus we finally arrived at WALLABADAH!  Everyone jumped off the buses and followed Mrs Beale into the memorial park. We walked along the path to the picnic benches that were shaded with sails above it that looked like the sails of a ship.  

After a delicious morning tea we went to the signs which were explaining about the First Fleet (convicts, ships, supplies, captains and free settlers). We all sat on the path while Mrs Beale talked about the First Fleet and another teacher, Mr Dimech, took photos.  Then everyone got a booklet that had questions on it. “This is going to be fun!” we said. 

Everybody ran off searching around the park. Who’s going to finish first!? “It’s soooooooooooo hot!” we exclaimed as we ran over to the section about the Second Fleet. Lots of hard questions done and we had two questions to go! Our group couldn’t find the answers so we asked our friends who had just finished. “YAY!” I shouted as I sprinted over to Mrs Blanch who was telling people what order they had finished in and it turned out we had finished 7th!

On the bus ride back to school we sang songs, played some games that we had made up and did some colouring-ins. The best bit was when we arrived back. Then we all jumped off the bus and ran into school. We were on the bus for about one hour and had so much energy. 

In conclusion, this was one of the best excursions and most fun trips that we’ve ever been on! The ride there was fun, the ride back was amazing but best of all the time we had there was exhilarating! We would like to thank all the teachers who came and helped but especially Mrs Beale, for organising everything.

By Emilia Bunnemeyer & Ruby Heywood 

 Our trip to Wallabadah

On the 15th of November 2024, all the children in Year 4 and teachers and staff were going to Wallabadah to learn more about Australian History. We have been learning about the First Nations People and the arrival of The First and Second Fleet in class. The park at Wallabadah is all about the First and Second Fleet.

When we arrived at school the teachers checked the roll and we all went to the bathroom before getting on the bus at ten o'clock. The bus trip took about 40 minutes from school to Wallabadah. We sang songs all the way!

As soon as we got there everyone was so hungry and we sat down and ate underneath the shade sails that looked like a ship. We were all given a booklet to use to gather the information about the First and Second from the stones and signboards.

In the nights before or the week before some children asked their parents if they had any family members that were aboard the First or Second Fleet. We then searched around the lists of names for relatives of children from Year 4.  We also answered questions that were in our booklet.

We found some interesting facts about the people that travelled to Australia. Some fun facts we discovered were that over all of the 11 ships there were 25 children. We found my last name Marshall on one of the lists and I asked Mrs Beale to take a photo. We also found the surname Pigeon which was related to Lara. 

We really enjoyed our trip and learning new things. We were lucky that the teachers organised and planned this for us.

by Sophia Marshall and Lara Ebzery