Category: History

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Active History Creative history History Thinking history

Residual memory, finger tip knowledge and weaving ‘Big’ history

Quite why it took me so long to make space in the diary for the SHP Conference at Leeds Trinity now seems difficult to explain but until 2013 this annual event had been something I had heard a lot about but not quite got around to attending. Having been blown away by the variety of ideas and experiences on offer in last year’s plenaries and workshops I was eagerly looking forward to a second helping this year and I was not disappointed.

I’d kind of chosen my workshops with a common theme and together with a little follow up reading I’ve started an experiment that I’ll be looking at again in the coming academic year. Outlined below are pen pictures of the sessions that provided the inspiration for the activity and brief comments on the task as delivered in a 50 minute lesson with a mixed ability Y7 class.

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History Second Order Concepts

ICT and the ‘S’ word

Historical Significance
Historical Significance

A great deal has been written about teaching pupils about significance. If you want to get a feel for the extensive work that has been done in this area you only have to look at ‘Teaching History’ to access to a range of excellent articles on the topic.  From the late Robert Phillips ‘GREAT’ mnemonic to Christine Counsell’s Five ‘R’s there are numerous scaffolds that we can use to help children assess the significant of something or someone. Here are a couple of ICT based ideas that have worked for me.

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Active History G&T History Local History

Active Local History – Restoring Pride in Our Local Heritage

Castle 4Over the last year I’ve been working with pupils in Y7, Y8 and Y10 on a spot of local history. The “Eye: A Castle Connected” project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and Mid Suffolk District Council has involved renovation work at Eye Castle, outreach work with local primary schools and a variety of art, music and ICT workshops here in school. The Y8 and Y10 pupils have been particularly involved throughout the project and have made a significant contribution to the running of workshops, the design and production of resources for primary school children,information boards within the castle grounds anda new smart-phone app which will be available to download in the next month or so.

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Active History Creative history History Revision

3-D History – Active Revision with Playmobil

It is that time of year again when we’re scratching our heads trying to think of something different to do with revision classes. Well why not get a bit creative, raid the toy cupboard and see what you can find that is relevant to your schemes of work?

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History WW1

Visit to Gallipoli

As far as I know no-one from my wife’s family has ever visited the Helles Memorial to look up the name of Douglas Milroy. There is very little chance of a visit in the near future from any of us; who knows, maybe one day……

I was really pleased when a good friend, who had organised herself a trip to Gallipoli, offered to find Douglas’ name on the memorial and leave a small cross of remembrance for us. Thanks Lee.

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History WW1

The Third Battle of Krithia – Gallipoli

“After the Second Battle of Krithia in May 1915, the average distance of the Allied trenches on the Helles front from the main landing places at W and V beaches was little more than three miles. Almost all the British area was overlooked by Turkish positions on the forward slopes of Achi Baba, and the British were consequently very anxious to capture these positions at the earliest possible opportunity.”

This report by Bryn Hammond (IWM) was really useful in helping me get a detailed picture of what happened. The link takes you to the main page but once you get there click on the ‘Download a fuller account….’ option.

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History

Douglas Milroy – Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Pt 2)

I wrote this last year using iWeb and MobileMe which will eventually disappear. I don’t want to lose the material so here it is again!

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History

Douglas Milroy – Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Pt 1)

I wrote this last year using iWeb and MobileMe which will eventually disappear. I don’t want to lose the material so here it is again! There are photos and other parts of the account to follow.

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Active History Education

Lasting Memories – A worthwhile trip for Henry and Henrietta

Declining Interest?

I’ve just returned from a trip to Ypres with a small group of Y9 pupils. I wonder if anyone has found recently that it has become a bit more difficult getting pupils to come on trips out? I suppose until about a year ago I never really had any problem filling a coach to go on any day out or, for that matter, overnight or longer visits. Well, over the last academic year I’ve begun to notice that it’s getting more and more tricky to fill the number of places needed to keep the overall cost of the activity at a reasonable level. This year despite our usual ‘push’ we attracted only 26 pupils to take part in what I consider to be a really worthwhile investigation into the history of the Great War.

Maybe there are just so many different extra curricular activities on offer that the ‘market’ is now too crowded or perhaps the financial downturn is finally starting to force parents to think much more carefully about what to spend their hard earned cash on. Whatever the real explanation it means that now more than ever I need to be clear about the justification for taking time out of the school day and ensuring that what is on offer represents good value for money. Of course we always ensure that parents are invited to attend an evening meeting where they can get a more detailed picture of their son’s or daughter’s trip. But sometimes the content can be a little heavy on the admin and light on the educational justification or indeed the interesting details that their children are going to enjoy; result, parents are understandably puzzled and wonder if they’ve spent their hard earned cash wisely when on return from their trip little Henry or Henrietta, when asked what they’ve done, reply that the burger and chips on the ferry were very nice!  So it’s probably wise to make sure that parents get a very detailed picture of exactly how the trip enriches the curriculum and why it is worth investing in.

Selling Trips

My presentations to parents now are structured under four headings:

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Revision

Using sporting analogies to improve essay writing at GCSE – insanity?

It must be something about the way I learn I suppose but I find myself routinely using analogies of one kind or another in my teaching. Indeed I sometimes catch my VI formers rolling their eyes as I cough up yet another possibly spur of the moment offering – they are very patient! Anyway they are sitting their final paper tomorrow and will not have to put up with my madness any longer. Not so fortunate are my Y11 class who have recently completed one paper and have their final exam in a couple of weeks time. We have one more revision day, yes a whole day, in which to polish their skills. We have already done a good revision programme with the pupils so my partner in crime and I are busy planning a series of activities for our last day with them to get over some key points in a memorable fashion, after all, familiarity breeds contempt. One of the activities I have up my sleeve involves Playmobil figures and blindfolds but more of that in another post in the near future. For now I thought I’d share a Prezi that I’m going to use (in a slightly modified format) when we talk about essay writing skills.

I’ve had real trouble trying to embed the presentation so for the time being I’m afraid a link is the best I can do. However I’ll pop the presentation on here when I crack the problem!

Link to Prezi