News from the History Department

Graeme Moran – HOD History

Europe trip!

2017 saw a combined History/Classical Studies trip to Europe. Staff in both departments, having recovered from the 2017 trip, are considering another foray to Europe in 2019. If there are any Year 11s or Year 12s in a history or classical studies class who would be interested in joining us on the 2019 trip, please contact your history or classical studies teacher.

Student success:

Congratulations to the 2017 Year 11 cohort. They did exceptionally well in both their internal and external assessment, gaining an endorsement rate of 83.2%. (40.3% at Merit and 42.9% at Excellence). The ‘yardstick’ of achievement in our history programme is success in the essay Achievement Standard. For the first time all students who sat this AS were successful. These results reflect the committed and dedicated work by both students and teachers. A very big thank you to Emma Dwyer and Peter Keir for their work in preparing our students for their external exams.

It was not just at Level One that our students met with success. Endorsement at Level Two and Level Three was also very high. And at scholarship there was considerable success with 16 students being awarded scholarship with three of these students awarded an Outstanding scholarship – ranked in the top 20 in the country. Special congratulations to Loimata Fa’alogo-Lilo who came 4th in New Zealand.

Students in the department are approaching the end of a sustained period of researching areas/issues/events of interest to them as part of their internal assessments. Many parents will, as I have, been impressed by the initiative shown by so many students who have given up Friday afternoons after school and/or time on Saturday and/or Sunday to travel to the Auckland Public Library in Lorne St to follow up their research. One student even flew to Wellington to access material in the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Remember: if you are interested in a possible trip to Europe – Berlin/Athens/Crete are suggestions at the moment – then do talk to your teacher.