Classroom Gallery 

Year 5/6 Creative Arts

Following our visit to the National Gallery in Canberra, 5/6 have been studying the Ned Kelly Series by Australian artist Sidney Nolan. See some of our interpretations below.

English - Factual Recounts ‘Jandamarra’

In English, students have been writing factual recounts based on the story of the Indigenous warrior ‘Jandamarra’. Jandamarra was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Bunuba people who led one of many organised armed insurrections against the British colonisation of Australia.  As you can see from our co-constructed success criteria, there was a lot of work involved in the writing of these recounts. 

Please see an example of work here from a budding writer and historian, Indie Powell (Year 5).

Jandamarra, the Man with Two Lives

Jandamarra was born as an Aboriginal man, not knowing what a great warrior and courageous and clever leader he would be. He was an Indigenous man who fought to save his people, the Bunuba tribe.

Jandamarra was born in 1873 .When Jandamarra was about 11 years old he went to live on Lennard River Pastoral Station with his mother. The boss that worked at the station called him “Pigeon” , after the bird that flew around the station. He soon became a crack shot with a rifle and could shoot things galloping on a horse, standing on the stirrups. He spent 6 years there before returning back to the Bunuba people when he was 16 to learn the traditional life after his first taste of station life.

Later ,in 1889 he and Ellemara, another Bunuba man, were captured by police at Windjana Gorge on the charge of killing sheep. They were chained together and were forced to walk to Derby gaol. Charges of killing sheep were abandoned when Jandamarra agreed to serve the police by taking care of their horses. He impressed the officers and gained the trust of the Derby policemen.

A year later he went to Lennard River as a stockman, and then back to his traditional home where he was alleged that he violated Bunuba kinship !Jandamarra went back to work in the police force and became a tracker for others that had killed livestock.He sent many of his own people to jail and one night as he was watching over the prisoners with his partner, Bill Richardson,when one of his fellow Bunuba tribe members ,Ellemarra, said: “ you can fight for you country”. That made Jandamarra think twice, so he pulled out his gun from the holster and shot Bill dead! He got the keys from the dead man's body,unlocked the cage and freed the prisoners. Jandamarra escaped and following behind him were his family.

Following that there was a great war! Many people died including Ellemara and many others got badly hurt like Jandamarra. When he was shot in the shoulder,

Jandamarra made his way to his secret cave and was treated by the Bunuba women. Janamara soon became the secret weapon of the Bunuba’s side,shooting men from behind and hiding the shadows of the cliffs.

When Jandamarra was making his way back to his hideout after a long day of Battle he accidentally alerted the enemy by displacing some rocks and dirt ashe climbed a cliff. One of the police , Micki ,was sent to follow Jandamarra all the way back to his hideout where they found him in the mouth of his secret cave.

Jandamarra was killed on April 1st 1897.Jandamarra had a short but incredible life. He fought to save his people and never gave up.

Maths - Volume

In Maths we have been learning to select and use the appropriate unit to estimate, measure and calculate volumes and capacities.

We conducted an investigation on displacement where we submerged objects into containers of water, measured how much water was displaced and then converted this measurement from millilitres to cubic centimetres. Please see some of our photos below. 

Carols by Candlelight on Tuesday evening