Scotch College

Year 2 excursion: learning the foundations

The Year 2 excursion provides an opportunity for the young boys to venture out on a uniquely Scotch experience.

WORDS: MR ANTHONY TASCA – YEAR 2 TEACHER  PHOTOGRAPHY: MS JOCELYN PRIDE

Scotch College provides its students with almost endless opportunities. Therefore, it is important that the foundations for active, hands-on and real-world learning are laid in the Junior School.

In yet another uniquely Scotch experience, the Year 2 boys migrate annually to the Immigration Museum to participate in the ‘Pack Your Bags’ programme.

The boys venture into a room containing many suitcases stacked on top of one another. Each case contains the personal stories of immigrants who have come to call Australia home. One such story is about a girl named Rebecca Greaves. She arrived on the Louisa Baillie in 1849 with her mother and nine brothers and sisters from England. Her father John met them at the wharf and they first lived near the top end of Collins Street. Her family then set up a farm on the Plenty River, near the suburb now known as Greensborough.

They cleared the property for wheat, potatoes and livestock, and built a cottage.

Another story is about Cuc Lam who fled Vietnam in 1978 with her husband, Minh and 30 other friends who also wanted to escape. Cuc sold her wedding ring to buy a red suitcase so people would not think she arrived here with nothing. She helped many immigrants settle in Australia and learn to speak English.

These stories offer a safe way for the boys to experience the journeys, gain an understanding and tolerance for others, and plant the seeds for their own future adventures in what is increasingly a global society.

The boys also complete a treasure hunt around the museum, searching for objects, artefacts and documents contained in their own little suitcases that are given to them by the museum. They discover the stories behind each object.

They also learn how immigrants travelled to Melbourne by ship or plane and how long their journeys took.

In what must be another ‘uniquely Scotch’ experience, the boys travel to Lygon Street in Carlton for a special lunch, in which they feast on delicious pizzas at Toto’s Pizza House on Lygon Street. The wonderful manners of the boys are on display for all to see, and they receive many compliments on their behaviour from the restaurant staff and fellow patrons.

The boys have ventured from their familiar environment within the grounds of Scotch College to experience stories from the past, get a taste of the present and begin to wonder about the future and where their Scotch experience will take them. GS

Andrew Bennett investigating the garden at Captain Cook’s Cottage

Giorgio Andrianakos and Ben Strang aboard the ship bound for Australia

Bailey Dann at Toto’s, Carlton’s oldest pizzeria,