Support your Year 4 students in their History: Experiences of People in Australia’s Past unit of work with the Life in the Port Jackson Colony Assessment task.

Created to coincide with Year 4 History Australian Curriculum, this activity will provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts related to the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788, including the experiences of First Fleet convicts living and working in Port Jackson.

Students will apply their knowledge of the topic to compose a daily schedule outlining a typical day in the life of a convict on the Life in the Port Jackson Colony worksheet, which includes space for descriptions of daily activities and illustrations. They are guided by the checklist of topics at the bottom of the page. It is recommended that students base their task on the perspective of the convict from their First Fleet Convict Profile task.

Students can then synthesise their learning to complete the second part of the assessment where they will compose a narrative about the experiences of their convict before, during and after 1788, using the Surviving the First Fleet writing template. Students are encouraged to include descriptions of their convict’s life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution, their crime and sentencing, the experience of being transported aboard the First Fleet and their life as a convict working in the Port Jackson colony. If additional time is required, it is recommended that this part of the assessment is incorporated into your Writing program.

This resource includes blank and lined versions of the Life in the Port Jackson Colony task as well as two styles of the Surviving the First Fleet writing template. Teachers can assess this task using the Life in the Port Jackson Colony Assessment Rubric. A blank version of this document has also been included.