The English and History Faculty are fortunate to have diverse talents, educational backgrounds and life experiences that are all utilised to bring a vigorous and multi-faceted educational experience to the students of Mulwaree High School.
Degrees in English literature, History, Drama, Aboriginal Studies and interests in IT, Theatre, Creative Writing, film-making among others, enable the faculty to infuse lessons with wide-ranging perspectives and innovative approaches to content, curriculum and learning activities.
Equally diverse are the personnel. Some with the enthusiasm of youth bringing fresh ideas and approaches, others with decades of involvement in schools and education that have the benefit of the wisdom of experience.
All of these combined talents are evidenced in the wide range of activities incorporated into learning programs as well as the multiplicity of cocurricular and extracurricular activities that characterise learning in English and History at Mulwaree High School.
Curriculum Opportunities
- Renaissance Accelerated Reading – currently operating in Years 7 and 8, Renaissance combines daily reading activities, online quizzes and regular testing to monitor the development of students’ reading skills.
- Education Perfect: Literacy, Language and History skills – students complete activities using Education Perfect to develop their language and historical skills in Years 7-10.
- Practical History tasks – these include the Vikings Learning Object task, a site study of the Mulwaree Remembrance Museum and the Popular Culture Immersion Experience.
Academic Competitions
Students have the opportunity to enter each of the following annual competitions:
- ICAS English (7-12), Writing (7-12) and Spelling (Year 7 only) competitions
- Education Perfect Championships
- Australian History Competition (7-10)
We have a proud record of student achievement in these competitions. In 2019, Euan (Year 11) achieved the highest score in the ICAS Writing Competition, receiving a medallion at the University of New South Wales.
Debating and Public Speaking
Students have the opportunity to compete in a range of annual debating and public speaking competitions. Please see the Debating and Public Speaking page for more information.
Excursions and Incursions
Each year, the faculty offer a range of excursions and incursions to complement students’ learning. These include:
- Bell Shakespeare – we have developed a strong partnership with the Bell Shakespeare Company. In recent years, students have attended productions of Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at the Sydney Opera House and Canberra Theatre Centre. Since 2016, Bell Shakespeare have also visited Mulwaree as part of their in-school performance tours.
We are also very fortunate to have Bell Shakespeare Teaching Scholarship alumni, Miss Michelle Dawson, in our faculty. Miss Dawson’s scholarship experience has enhanced the teaching of Shakespeare in the faculty, with all staff regularly participating in practical workshops that are then delivered in their own classes.
- Never the Last Post – in 2018 and 2019, Mulwaree has been invited by the Belgian Embassy to commemorate fallen diggers as part of the ‘Never the Last Post’ project. Students from Year 9 have had the opportunity to join the Belgian Ambassador for a commemoration ceremony and lay a wreath at the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.
- Author visits – we have been fortunate to have an annual author visit each year since 2016, including poetry workshops with slam poet Zohab Zee Khan and fiction workshops with Canberra-based Young Adult author, Jack Heath.
- Sydney Jewish Museum – Year 12 Modern History have participated in learning programs at the Sydney Jewish Museum to support their study of the HSC.
- HSC Study Days – students have attended both live and online study days to complement their preparation for the HSC.
HSC Course Information
For further information on our HSC course offerings, please see the link below:
English and Hisory HSC Subject Information
