Year 10 English

Macbeth or ‘the Scottish play’ as it is known within the theatre world is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing and bloody tales. Macbeth is a loyal soldier and cousin of King Duncan but when three weird sisters appear on the heath and declare that he will be ‘king hereafter’ Macbeth starts to let his ambition override his morality. This play is a study of what happens to good people when power and ambition corrupts them.

In class we have had many heated discussions about the themes of the play and why we think the characters acted they way they did. We even did the morality ranking. In groups thought about the events in the play and tried to justify characters actions. We had to rank their actions from the ‘worst thing ever’ to ‘acceptable’.

Which do you think is worse? A woman who convinces her husband to murder, a man who murders his king, a soldier who kills an enemy in battle, a woman who commits suicide, a man who kills his enemy’s family or a doctor who knows this patient has murdered someone but says nothing. It was sooooooo HARD to decide!

Year 10 boys trying to decide which is worse in Macbeth

This term we were lucky enough to have Complete Works Shakespeare Company come in and perform Macbeth for us. Three actors performed the play and we had a question and answer session after. It was beneficial for all students as it helped in their understanding of the text. To see it acted out makes it easier to understand the text compared to when we just read it in class and watch clips. Our favourite part was the weird sisters and the final death scene!

Complete Works Shakespeare Company performance of Macbeth

Elective: Debating

As part of the Debating program at Sirius College Ibrahim Dellal Campus, we are going to take part in interschool debating. This will apply to students who have adopted to choose Debating as their elective and is optional, although encouraged. We will endeavour to take as many as nine students in a rotating team; which will be reviewed in 2017.

Debating allows your child the opportunity to improve upon their organisational, team building and deportment skills; notwithstanding the improvement of self confidence. As a school we want to develop a long term strategy of interschool competition, which is designed to enhance the culture of our school. We hope that you will be supportive in this endeavour.

Students will need to wear their Full School Uniform and will be required to be dropped off and picked up from the venue; (although, parents are welcome to stay during the debates).

Humanities Department:

Here is an example of how governments attempted to get people to fight in World War One.

Propaganda has proven to be a significant force in controlling and manipulating public opinion. Can you find any modern day versions?

Dear parents and students,

Year 10 humanities team will be focusing on modern history throughout Semester 2. So far we looked at the events that led to the outbreak of the war, causes and major battles that took place in course of the war. In our last sessions this week, we have been analysing sources and researching about the difficulties that prisoners of war had during their captivity.

We have been learning a lot of interesting facts about WW11 and here are few to share with you

• The country with the largest number of WWII casualties was Russia, with over 21 million.
• The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle of World War II. It began immediately upon the British declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 and ended with Germany's surrender to the Allies in May 1945.
• Adolf Hitler’s nephew, William Hitler, served in the US Navy during World War II.