Each year the New Zealand History Teachers association and the New Zealand Historical Association jointly hold a nationwide competition to make awards to research undertaken by secondary school students as part of their assessment programme. Schools are encouraged to choose and submit work from one student at each year level to be assessed by a national panel with representatives of both organisations.

This year we submitted work from Frances Barnett (Y11) and Raven Mackenzie (Y12). The Auckland-based panel made awards to both students.

Frances was First = in the Year 11 section with her research on family history: “Scotland to Otago: Understanding Dunedin’s Scottish Roots”. The panel praised Frances’s “ambitious” family history which “mixed the personal and the wider perspective”. They noted that Frances wrote “with genuine breadth and depth” and “handled complex ideas effectively” in her “outstanding presentation”.

Raven received the award for third place in the Y12 section for her research “Times of Protest: New Zealand Maori and North American Indian." The judges described her work as “an ambitious and challenging exercise in comparative history” which was “wideranging and interesting…with historical ideas explicitly made and well-supported.” They particularly noted Raven’s inclusion of “a thoughtful series of evaluative comments on the strengths and limitations of the sources available.”

Congratulations to both students for their achievements in producing work of this scope and quality.