If you're teaching Stage 2 HSIE Unit 7 — the Sydney Cove penal settlement — you already know the challenge: sixteen lessons of rich, source-heavy history, and every one of them needs maps, artworks, journal extracts and discussion questions up on the board. Finding and formatting all of that is hours of work before you've taught a single lesson.
This student-facing PowerPoint does that work for you. It covers all 16 lessons plus 4 optional consolidation activities across 346 slides, ready to open, project and teach — with every source, question and task already on the screen.
What the unit covers
Unit 7 tells the story of the early colony from the ground up: the founding of the settlement at Sydney Cove (Warrane), the initial contact between Aboriginal Peoples and the British, and the daily lives of the convicts, marines and settlers who lived there. Students meet the real people of the settlement — Arabanoo, Patyegarang, Nanberry, Bennelong and Colebee, Governor Arthur Phillip through to Governor Macquarie — and follow the colony through law and order, food and survival, leadership and the Rum Rebellion.
Along the way, students build the historical skills at the heart of the syllabus: using images, maps, objects, sites and personal accounts as sources of evidence, and constructing narratives of the past. Key vocabulary — penal settlement, governor, colony, evidence, source — is taught explicitly in every lesson.
Teaching first contact respectfully
The stories of Arabanoo, Patyegarang, Nanberry, Bennelong and Colebee are told through primary sources and carefully worded think-about prompts, pitched for Years 3 and 4. The slides name the Gadigal and other Aboriginal Peoples of the Sydney area and return throughout the unit to Country, Culture and Community, so first contact is presented accurately and respectfully for young learners.
Designed the way you teach
Every lesson runs on the same rhythm: a prior-knowledge warm-up, explicit teaching with think-about prompts beside every source, guided discussion with think-pair-share and whiteboard routines, then an independent task with a challenge for fast finishers and a reflection to close. Learning intentions and success criteria open every lesson, and colour-coded badges — CORE, WATCH, DISCUSS, YOUR TURN — tell you at a glance what kind of moment each slide is.
Videos, source pages and museum collections are linked directly on the slides — one click and the class is watching the clip or zooming into the map. And because every image is locked in place, nothing shifts, stretches or disappears mid-lesson.
One note
To teach the unit you'll need access to the Stage 2 HSIE Unit 7 lesson plans — this PowerPoint supports their delivery rather than replacing them. The slides are the projection layer that puts the sources, questions and tasks on the board; the lesson plans carry the full teaching guidance and printed resources. The file is also deliberately non-editable, so the layout you see is the layout your class sees.
Quick facts
346 slides · all 16 lessons + 4 consolidation activities · one PowerPoint file · Stage 2 (Years 3–4) · HSIE History · digital download
A few questions teachers ask
Is this the whole unit, or just some lessons?
All sixteen lessons, in sequence, plus the four optional consolidation activities that follow Lesson 16 — 346 slides in total, delivered as one PowerPoint file.
Can I edit the slides?
No — the slides are locked so that every image, source and task stays exactly where it should be on any computer. That's deliberate: it's what keeps the deck reliable on a school laptop mid-lesson.
Do I need anything else to teach with it?
Yes — access to the Stage 2 HSIE Unit 7 lesson plans, which carry the teaching guidance and printed resources, plus an internet connection for the embedded videos and source links. The slides are the projection layer for whole-class teaching.
Does it suit Year 3 and Year 4?
Yes — it's written for Stage 2 in NSW, which covers Years 3 and 4, and the reading load and discussion routines are pitched for that range.