What a busy April school holidays for Academy Travel! 16 groups… 10 countries… 492 participants… And all in 21 days! We are proud to say that feedback from all our groups has been overwhelmingly positive. We would like to thank all our hardworking support staff who made this school holiday period stress-free and rewarding for everyone involved. Looking forward to the rest of the year, Academy Travel has some exciting opportunities for teachers. Our next professional development tour for history teachers has been released; a detailed program with 45 hours of accredited PD visiting Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg and Moscow. We are also sponsoring the visit of internationally recognised historian Professor Sir Richard Evans.
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If you are looking to give your Ancient History students that extra advantage in the HSC, Dr Estelle Lazer is available for school visits. And drama teachers, stay tuned: a new professional development tour will be announced in our next newsletter! From the Academy Travel Schools Team
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ACADEMY TRAVEL GROUPS ON THE ROAD - APRIL 2015 Elderslie High School visited the Bay of Naples, Rome, the Western Front and Paris. They also had the opportunity to play an informal game of football at the Peace Village in Messines. Students, teachers and parents played an energetic match on a football ground situated along the infamous Messines Ridge, and within sight of the Messines Ridge British Cemetery. The game echoed the matches supposedly held in the area during WWI as part of the 1914 Christmas Truce, and was played in a spirit that would have won great approval from those involved in the Great War.
The Sydney Grammar School group traversed the battlefields of Gallipoli, the Western Front and Normandy, with students presenting moving commemorations to the Old Boys buried there. The group also had time to enjoy the cities of Istanbul, Amsterdam, Ypres and Paris along the way.
Redlands spent a week in Germany investigating the rise and fall of the Third Reich, followed by a week in Italy exploring the Cities of Vesuvius and Ancient Rome. One particular highlight was a fascinating tour of the former beer cellars converted into bunkers to store the priceless artworks of Nuremberg during WWII air raids.
St Andrew’s Cathedral School Year 10 and 11 drama students travelled through the UK and Ireland enjoying a diverse range of performances and workshops. The workshop hosted by the Traverse Theatre, facilitated by the visiting theatre company Graeae, in Edinburgh, was most surprising. Graeae has accessibility at its core, creating work that can be enjoyed by all and using signing, surtitles, sound and light for an enhanced theatrical experience. In this workshop, after warming up with games such as creating a unique sign and sound for their own name, students created accessible scenes based on the themes of their production of Blood Wedding which the group watched later that evening.
STAYING IN TOUCH ON TOUR A great way to keep families back home in the loop is to setup a site online that can used to document the trip and share photos. If you are not able to set up a page in-house on your school website, there are a number of fantastic (and free!) websites to use for a tour blog. At the end of each day, teachers may ask a student to write a summary of the day’s activities. This is a great way to engage the students with what they have been learning, capture the highlights from each day, plus family members at home can log on to see how the tour is progressing. Port Macquarie High School Ancient History students explored Ancient Rome and the Cities of Vesuvius in their school holidays. The students enjoyed detailed visits of Herculaneum with archaeologist Christian Biggi and Pompeii with Dr Estelle Lazer, experiences they are sure to recall when sitting those HSC papers later in the year!
Check out the blog used by the group from St Andrew’s Cathedral School for their recent study tour here.
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TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TOUR FRANCE, GERMANY AND RUSSIA IN THE 20TH-CENTURY, 4-14 JULY, 2016 We are proud to announce our upcoming professional development tour for teachers of History which is offered in the July 2016 school holiday period. This study tour program is based on the current HSC syllabus, with a focus on the national studies of Germany and Russia, as well as relevant Personalities, Conflict in Europe and The Cold War. This tour provides participants with 45 hours of accredited professional development. The itinerary begins with three nights in Paris, looking at the French Revolution from the Chateau of Versailles to the Place de la Bastille. A day trip to the World War I battlefields of the Somme Valley is also included, plus time to see the famous landmarks of the city. The tour then continues to the exciting German capital of Berlin for three nights. Here, we explore the sites associated with the Third Reich and the Cold War. A guided tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial will provide a stark context for the Holocaust. The group will fly to St Petersburg to investigate the events surrounding the 1917 Russian Revolution and the 1944 Siege of Leningrad. After travelling by train to Moscow, the focus shifts to Cold War history and includes a visit to a nuclear bunker 65 metres underground. During the four nights in Russia, the group will be accompanied by academic expert Dr Matthew Dal Santo who will provide background lectures and detailed site visits. Matthew is an historian of post-Soviet Russia and a Danish Research Council post-doctoral fellow in the University of Copenhagen. Academy Travel is endorsed to provide QTC Registered Professional Development for teachers accredited at Proficient Teacher level. Completing this study tour program will contribute 45 hours of QTC Registered PD addressing 2.1.2, 6.2.2, 6.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. In most cases, this tour will be fully tax deductible for full or part time History teachers. Please speak to your tax agent for professional advice. Some teachers may be able to have all or part of the tour fee subsidized by their school’s professional development program (letter of support available on request). For a detailed itinerary and booking information, you can visit our website or email schools@academytravel.com.au.
Professor Sir Richard Evans Academy Travel is sponsoring a visit to Australia by world-renown historian Professor Sir Richard Evans. Richard will present the keynote and two workshops at the upcoming HTA NSW conference in July, as well as two regional workshops in Canberra and Newcastle. Visit the HTA website for full details. He will also present a discussion at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday, 26th July, with further details to be announced soon. Professor Sir Richard Evans is Regius Professor Emeritus of History and President of Wolfs on College, University of Cambridge, and Provost of Gresham College, London. His publications include The Third Reich in History and Memory (Feb. 2015), Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History, The Third Reich at War, The Third Reich in Power, The Coming of the Third Reich, Telling Lies About Hitler and In Defence of History.
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Risk management? Let us do the hard work for you!
Villa of the Mysteries reopens
We understand how daunting and time consuming departmental risk management approval can be for teachers. The huge amount of paperwork required is quite a task when added on top of a teacher’s already hectic workload. So, Academy Travel is happy to do it as part of our service to you!
After two years of painstaking restoration work, the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii reopened to the public in late March – just in time for our April groups to see the beautiful frescoes believed to depict the initiation rites of the cult of Dionysus. It took several teams of archaeologists, architects, chemists and physicists to the fix damage done by previous attempts and restore it to its original splendour. As demonstrated in this recent photo, they have done a brilliant job!
From your ‘Notice of Intention to Plan an Overseas Excursion’ to the final ‘Overseas Excursion Checklist’, we will compile all the paperwork required to get your tour off the ground and lighten your workload. Of course, we also offer this service to independent schools – just inform us of your school’s requirements.
Dr Estelle Lazer at your school Dr Estelle Lazer is available to present lectures at schools through Academy Travel. Dr Lazer can present a talk on your choice of topic from the Cities of Vesuvius core study, including: • The earthquake, the eruption and how victims died • Site management in Pompeii and Herculaneum over time • The ethics of studying and displaying human skeletal remains • The victims from Pompeii and Herculaneum, including new research on the casts She currently has dates available in June, August and November. Please email Natalie@academytravel.com.au to receive further details.
Planning your next study tour If you are planning to offer your next study tour in July or September 2016, now is the time to get the ball rolling! The ideal time to start thinking about your next tour is 18 months prior, which allows plenty of time for promoting the tour within the school and the ability for families to budget for the tour. It also means we have a better chance at securing your preferred flights, hotels, guides and bookings. So, contact us now to discuss your itinerary!
Contact us to discuss your school’s specific requirements and we are happy to provide a detailed tour proposal with costings and inclusions. We can also come to your school to meet with the key decision makers to assist in the approval process and provide any required risk management documentation.
Congratulations Jackie! In March, schools team member Jackie Colonnelli graduated from the University of New England with a Master of History. For the last three years, she has been undertaking subjects with a strong link to the sites and content of our history tours.
Level 1, 341 George St, Sydney NSW 2000 P: (02) 9235 0134 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney) E: schools@academytravel.com.au W: schools.academytravel.com.au
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