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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-08-24 Daily Xml
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ANZAC Spirit School Prize

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (16:12): It gives me great pleasure to congratulate some outstanding young South Australians who have participated in and successfully awarded the Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize for 2021. They join an alumni of significant work done by some outstanding South Australian students over a number of years now. Since 2007, 165 students have done this work as a project in year 10. They have engaged with an Australian or particularly South Australian hero, whether that be a serviceman or a nurse or someone who served Australia during the First World War or, in more recent years, the Second World War as well.

They have engaged in a new project that has contributed to Australia's historical record of that service. Indeed, thousands of these projects, having now been done as part of the Virtual War Memorial or as unique projects on their own, have been accessed by family members of deceased or returned service people—certainly all deceased now given the time we are talking about. It has brought them comfort and pride in their family members.

The 2021 Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize awardees are Matthew Boyd from Investigator College, Lara Dawson and Olivia Turner from Adelaide Botanic High School, Nicholas Heinrich from Central Yorke School, Annabel Arbon and Gemma Mann from Endeavour College, Cynole Sony from Glenunga International High School, Jessica Grasser from Golden Grove High School, Ezra Lockwood from Horizon Christian School, Madeline Wirth from Kingston Community School, Jessica Inglis and Dakota Lloyd from Loxton High School, Jennifer Nguyen from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, Max Thomas from Prince Alfred College, Aidan Chong and Sadie Schultz from St Ignatius College, Bethany Yates from St Martin's Lutheran College, Saffron Chen and Eleanor Humphrey from St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School, and Abbey O'Donnell from Wirreanda Secondary School.

I would also like to commend their teachers, in particular Jodie O'Donnell, Jean Rogers, Raelene Stutley, David Thiele, Damon Smith, Rhys Wood, Rebecca Learey, Maddison Lawrie, Ilza Braddock, Maria Kambanaros, Ron Pippett, Stephen Uren, Romana Quintel, Gregor Dingwall and Lauren Smith.

The Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize was developed to encourage young South Australians to understand, connect with and maintain the ANZAC spirit. It aims to make history come alive and engage our students at an empathetic level with the stories of individuals from individual and original primary sources, and years 9 and 10 students from around South Australia have been entering the competition. It is about storytelling, and if members are not yet familiar with the prize I encourage them to go onto the website of the Virtual War Memorial and look at some of the wonderful entries. They use letters, artefacts, photographs and oral history.

In the last couple of years we have seen dramatic increases; indeed, in 2021 more than a thousand students participated in the competition, a more than 40 per cent increase from previous years. Those students have previously been able to travel to places like France, Belgium, Singapore, South Korea, Gallipoli and Vietnam to connect with our ANZAC history. In 2021, it was to Darwin, and in 2022 it is again planned for the students to travel to Darwin and the Top End for the purposes of historical learning and commemoration.

We are really pleased that the 2020 winners were able to have a trip this year, which was successful. Students commemorated the 1942 bombing of Darwin; in particular, they laid wreaths as part of the ceremony on ANZAC Day at the Darwin Cenotaph and mixed with veterans and members of the history community in the Northern Territory government at Parliament House, and I thank the Northern Territory government for its support. Students also connected with community; media outlets and community groups have heard the stories of the projects from students since.

The teachers selected to accompany the students on this trip are Jodie O'Donnell from Investigator College and Janine Fedorchuk-Weeks from Birdwood High School. Dr Paula Dabovich has been selected to be the RSL SA delegate on the tour to conduct commemoration ceremonies, and I thank the RSL in particular for its strong engagement with this project over many years.

The 2022 prize will be launched on 11 November, Remembrance Day. With the continued support of the South Australian history community, RSLs and South Australian schools across the education sectors, the Marshall Liberal government looks forward to continuing to support the important work of this prize and see the significant contributions the successful students will make in the years ahead.

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