For the past four years students at Thornton Public School and students at a college in Turkey have been exchanging letters to learn more about their countries' shared histories.
On Wednesday the exchange culminated in the viewing of two documentaries at Thornton, one made by the school's students and the other made by their counterparts at TED Mersin College on Turkey's southern coast. The films are both about soldiers who died on the Gallipoli front, one Australian and one Turkish.
The Turkish Consul General in Sydney, Mr Melih Karalar, and state RSL representatives, attended the school to view the students' project on Paterson's Private Arthur Keppie. The assembly then watched Mersin students' film about Lieutenant Ibrahim Naci, who was also killed in 1915.
Principal Stuart Wylie said the premiere of the projects, instigated by Mersin's history teacher Celal Yildirim, fostered "understanding".
"Both soldiers kept diaries and were writing back to their families. They went through similar experiences on opposite sides of the trenches," Mr Wylie said.
The students planted an olive tree in the schoolyard to mark the event, which is part of the school's 100th anniversary celebrations.
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