Education & OSHC Tours

Adelaide Gaol offers education tours mapped to the Australian Curriculum and SACE.

Guided education tours run for 60 minutes. Please arrive 10 minutes before your booking time so tours can start promptly. Tours are interactive. Early and primary school tours emphasise life as a prisoner inside Adelaide Gaol, middle years are based around a Poetry Slam competition where students compose Haikus and the senior secondary tour culminates in a subject-specific debate.

All students have the opportunity to explore the gaol yards and cells, touch artefacts such as handcuffs and escape ropes, and contemplate South Australia’s dark history.

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Our OSHC Great Escape Program is a kinesthetic, play-based day out. Children are split into teams and rotate through four activity areas to experience and learn about life at Adelaide Gaol.

OSHC Staff will be given maps and activity sheets to lead children between the activity areas. Children rotate around four activity areas, spending 30 minutes in each area. One of the areas includes eating lunch (students bring their own lunch).

Our Kindergarten to Year 3 Education Tours are play-based learning activities. Students participate in Adelaide Gaol's 'Guard in the Yard' Tour. The children are taken through sections of the Gaol where they find the Guards hidden along the way. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff engage with the children, shares stories and highlight interesting artefacts around the Gaol.

Our year 4-6 education tour is interactive and allows students to experience what it would have been like as a prisoner at the Adelaide Gaol in the 1800s. Focusing on the History and Civics elements of the HASS curriculum, students will be able to see and explore yards where men, women and children were incarcerated and learn about the different crimes they committed. Children will be able to interact with artefacts such as handcuffs, and shackles and learn about daily life in a Gaol.

Our year 7-8 tour focuses on the civics elements of the HASS curriculum. Students will learn about the different crimes people committed to end up in Gaol and how that changed over time. They will also learn about the Gaol’s darkest history and the role of corporal and capital punishment in the legal system. Students will be able to explore the different yards of the Gaol and how prisoners were segregated according to sentence and behaviour.

Our Prisoner’s First Day Program is interactive and encourages students to immerse themselves in Adelaide Gaol's long and diverse history. Focusing on the History elements of the HASS curriculum, students experience life as a prisoner would have during the Gaol's 147 year operation. The students will see inside cells, interact with artefacts and contemplate South Australia’s dark history. Students will each be given primary and secondary sources of a person and be asked to examine what these sources tell them about that person's life. Please note this is not a tour but a hands-on program. Students will not see all areas of the Gaol but will learn about the harsh realities of being a prisoner in the 1840s compared to the 1960s.

Our SACE Education Tours are in-depth and encourage students to think critically about certain subject areas. Our experienced Site Interpreters can create a tour program that supports the learning of a variety of SACE subjects, including English, Legal Studies, Modern History, Psychology, Women's Studies, Society and Culture and Tourism.

Optional Activity - Debate. Students gather evidence to defend their position in a debate. The two topics are:

• 'Did Adelaide Gaol do enough to rehabilitate prisoners?'
• 'Adelaide Gaol offers tourists a unique Dark Tourism experience.'