These awards, sponsored by the NSW Minister for Education, encourage students to become actively involved in the study of history and History Week, while offering teachers an opportunity to energise students and bring the history curriculum to life. The inaugural awards will be announced after History Week 2009.

Students are to prepare and participate in an activity or event to culminate in History Week which highlights how they have engaged with the study of history via the NSW curriculum. Entries can be made by a class, year group, stage or a whole school. The awards are open to all primary and secondary schools (Years 7-10) in NSW, with a $1,000 prize for the winning primary entry and $1,000 for the winning secondary entry.

2010 Minister's History Week Schools Award

In its inaugural year, the Minister’s History Week Schools Awards were quite successful, with ten entries in total. In particular the quality of the entries was extremely high, which demonstrated that participating schools had put in a lot of effort and benefited from the process. The winners and associated judges comments are below.

Primary level: St Michael’s Stanmore
Its overall approach was most extensive. It was inclusive, with varied activities. It demonstrated a great of careful preparation and was impressively documented.

Secondary Level: Ashfield Boys High School
It showed considerable effort and engagement involving the whole school. It also effectively encouraged interest in History, targeted the syllabus, set the context well, was based on students' ideas and was celebratory and engaging.

Highly Commended
Primary level: Blakebrook Primary School and Middleton Public School
Secondary level: Mt St Benedict College

The winning schools were invited to a presentation ceremony at Parliament House held in the Jubilee Room on 24 November 2009. The Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Karyn Paluzzano MP presented the awards on behalf of the Minister for Education, who was unable to attend due to ill health.