Personal & local history

History

Secondary

How a school is bringing the past to life using archives

An inspiring example of how one school is working with its local public archive to bring the past to life. Practically every town and village in the country has a public collection of archives. They are a massive but hidden resource for schools. This programme shows how one school makes the most of its local archive to enhance and bring to life their work on the topic of slavery. Martin Phillips, a teacher from Four Dwellings High School in Birmingham, and a team from the Birmingham City Archives, have developed an outreach session for his mixed ability Year 8 history class. Work starts in the classroom where archive material is bought by the library. The archives are analysed and studied by the class. Spurred on by the session in the classroom, Martin takes the class into the library to see what else the archives have to offer. Here the class learns how to preserve and repair archive material and what an archive library has to offer.

Amazing Archives

KS3/KS4 history: How a Jewish man fled Nazi persecution as a boy

In this lesson idea for Key Stage 3 and KS4 history pupils, Otto Deutsch speaks about his experiences of the Holocaust, and how he was forced to leave Austria and move to the UK as a child. Otto visits his childhood home in Austria, describes his journey to England and discusses his struggle to fit into his new surroundings. Secondary pupils can learn how, in 1938 and 1939, 10,000 Jewish children escaped a life of persecution by travelling as refugees with the Kindertransport to safety in the UK.

Holocaust and the Kindertransport: Otto's Story

Creating a lesson inspired by objects from the Museum of London

A team of teachers is challenged to produce an imaginative and exciting lesson on medieval history inspired by objects given to them in a box. Head of history Iain Annat and NQT Ian Ochiltree are from Aylesbury High School in Buckinghamshire, go to Ashwell village in Hertfordshire, where they discover evidence of a community touched by the Black Death. With the aid of objects from the Museum of London and the British Library, and help from local shepherd and historian David Short, they embark upon creating an investigative medieval mystery lesson.

KS3 History: Out of the Classroom into the Village

New techniques to involve pupils in their history learning

Exploring the streets, interviewing ex-miners and visiting local resources are all part of learning history for a group of Year 10 pupils in Nottingham. Mike Endy, history teacher at Holgate School, decided that the OCR GCSE History Pilot would benefit some of his students, making the subject feel more relevant to them and enabling them to develop a sense of their own community's past. In this programme, look at three key lessons in a 12-week local study, exploring the legacy of coal mining in Nottingham from the 19th century to the pit closures in the mid 1980s. Pupils study archive maps, interpret local trade directories and interview ex-miners as they work towards their three assessment tasks, while Mike talks of the challenges and rewards of this kind of history teaching.

KS4 History - The Legacy of Coal

Three great resources to engage students in local history

In this edition we look at three resources designed to help teach local history to secondary students. Expert Alf Wilkinson, education manager for The Historical Association, recommends: <ul> <li> Museum Loan Boxes - boxes of local artefacts</li> <li> Kelly's Directory - trade listing publications from 1700s to 1970s </li> <li>Victorian Crime &amp; Punishment - a website from E2BN </li> </ul> Our roving reporter, Matthew Tosh, heads out to see a couple of the resources in action while Alf and presenter Hermione Cockburn discuss the resources in the studio with panellists Jon Clarke, deputy head at Walsall Academy and freelance history advisor Dave Martin.

Secondary History: Local History

Students visit one the few deep mines open to the public

The Big Pit mining museum in Blaenafon, Wales is one of only three deep mines in Europe open to the public. The museum offers school groups the chance to descend down the original shaft with ex-miners to see what working life was like for the generations of men who worked at the coal face. Teacher Paul Everington takes pupils from City Academy Bristol to visit the museum as part of their Key Stage 3 History project. They soon discover how hard the pit life was. In addition to industrial history, the trip has cross-curricular links allowing students to enhance their knowledge of geography, science and citizenship. Back on the surface, the pupils visit the interactive multimedia mining galleries which tell the story of how the coal was won and find out about the lives of those involved in the coal industry in the Pithead Baths Exhibitions.

The Big Pit

The story of 10,000 Jewish refugee children who studied in the UK

This moving and powerful programme tells the story of the struggle Jewish refugee children faced in the late 1930s when they were uprooted from home to avoid persecution and the forthcoming Holocaust. From 1938 to 1939 ten thousand Jewish refugee children were saved from a life of continuous persecution at home, but forced to part with family and friends and travel with the Kindertransport to safety in the UK. Some of the children and a teacher working in one of the schools where they studied provide their thoughts. There is also an investigation into the role played by foster homes, and by schools, that provided stability and security in the children's damaged lives.

Professional Development for Quality Teaching

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