critical analysis of history plan

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A critical analysis and evaluation of The life of children in Southampton during World

War Two.

Introduction

This essay provides a critical analysis of the effective teaching of primary history in a year 6

class. To achieve this, the author will draw on an extensive range of literature to evaluate

The life of children in Southampton during World War Two. It will use its teaching and

intended learning outcomes to provide a clear link between the theory in the literature and

successful teaching practice in the classroom.

This scheme of work is based within the topic of Britain since 1930 which is part of the

National Curriculum, History, Key Stage Two, Breadth of Study 8 (British History) and

Breadth of Study 11 (Victorian Britain or Britain since 1930). It also links with History, Key

Stage Two, Breadth of Study 7 (Local History Studies), as children will be investigating how

the local area (Southampton) was affected by World War Two (DFES, 1999). It draws on the

real life experiences of local people, their recollections and experiences, the history of the

local area and the use of primary and secondary sources to make the work more engaging and

interesting to keep the children highly motivated throughout the topic.

Through building the scheme of work as part of a much larger topic, many cross curricular

links have been developed to allow the children to appreciate the issues (such as leaving their

parents as an evacuee or spending a night in a bomb shelter during the blitz) and access the

learning in a variety of different ways. This diversity will appeal to children with different

learning styles and those with special education needs. In addition this scheme of work will

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be taught using an enquiry based teaching method, as this will allow the children to take

ownership of their work and will give them a greater motivation to find the answers to their

own questions, rather than just answering questions that are given to them. As in their

learning in general, historys main purpose is to prompt questions (Bage, 2000).

Using enquiry strategies the children are able to achieve the overall intended learning

outcome of this scheme of work, which is to use primary and secondary sources and to

critically evaluate them in terms of their usefulness. This is defined by Forrest & Harnett as

one of the five key elements of history; the five he listed are chronology, range and depth of

understanding, interpretation of history, historical enquiry and organisation and

communication (Forrest & Harnett, 1996, page 8). This series of lessons intends to meet

three of these in the range and depth of understanding, interpretation of history and historical

enquiry.

The scheme of work intends to be as creative as possible by trying to make learning

innovative; this is achieved through not only looking at books and artefacts, but through

using oral history to question a visitor who actually experienced the war and through using

different drama techniques enabling the children to experience aspects of the war for

themselves. As Turner-Bisset suggests drama is the art form of social encounters and it

offers a rich experience for learners (Turner-Bisset, 2005, page 102).These plans will

endeavour to allow children to experience life in Southampton during World War Two. By

focusing on Southampton (as an area well known by the children) it is hoped that they work

will be engaging for them and will be made more relevant to the learners by looking at an

area they know well (Jeffery & Woods, 2003).

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Cross curricular teaching

The life of children in Southampton during World War Two scheme provides numerous

opportunities for cross curricular work (examples of which are given in more detail later),

especially with links to literacy, drama, ICT and PSHE. Our own experience of the world is

cross-curricular; everything which surrounds us in the physical world can be seen and

understood from multipleperspectives (Barnes, 2011).From this we can see how we need to

ensure that children do not see subjects in school as separate entities, but as a linked series

making up a whole. However, Barnes also argues that as not all children respond to the same

style of teaching, not all children will learn best in a cross curricular approach and a good

teacher will then need to be flexible to teach to different styles of learning. For example, in

lesson 3 the children look at sources to study evacuees and to write a letter to persuade a

parent to send or not send their child away. This combines history and literacy, but the

teacher will need to be prepared to support those children who struggle in literacy, as they

may need additional help in writing their letter. Although the work is cross curricular, this

scheme of work also includes several elements that can clearly be defined within the subject

area of history, such as the interpretation of sources, narrative and the oral recollections of

history by the visitor.

For schools to ensure that children achieve in literacy it should be embedded across the

curriculum in a variety of ways.

The National Literacy Strategy explicitly restored literacy across the curriculum as a

primary concern of schools at all key stages (Alexander, Walsh, Jarman & McClune,

2008, page 24).

Since then schools have worked hard to ensure that they have included literacy across the

curriculum. This scheme of work provides children with several ways to record their work,

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could be argued that by not using ICT quite as much, it actually enhances the childrens

appreciation of the time period.

There are many opportunities for cross curricular links to PSHE and citizenship as the

children can learn to appreciate the feelings and attitudes of the people involved, such as how

upsetting it is to leave your home and family behind as an evacuee or how terrifying it is to

live through an air raid. This fits in easily with history as the Key Stage Two programme of

study provides the imaginative teacher with many opportunities for fostering children's

knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in their growth as moral young citizens (Dean, 2002).

Although not in a direct way, this scheme of work does have cross curricular links to science.

History and science have very similar skills in that you have to question the evidence (in this

case primary and secondary sources on World War Two) and use this to create a sound

argument (Brodie & Thompson, 2009). Both subjects rely on this ability to question and

throughout the work is based on an enquiry based teaching method, which will help to

develop the childrens ability to question to the advantage of both subject areas.

The theory underlying the use of enquiry as a teaching method

The life of children in Southampton during World WarTwo is based on an enquiry teaching

method. This is described by Buch and Wolff as a method which allows children to learn in

an active way that involves a lot of interaction across the classroom (Buch & Wolff, 2000),

asking and answering questions is a significant element of this. This strategy will allow the

children to take ownership of their work to a much greater extent, than if they were just given

the facts of the historical events. It enables them to think of their own questions in the first

session, and to then discover the answers for themselves using a range of primary and

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secondary sources. Being able to question the world around them is a valuable and important

skill, and this should be encouraged in the classroom (Roden, 2009). It also makes the work

more enjoyable for the children, which as the Excellence and Enjoyment Document states

enjoyment is the birth right of every child (DFES, 2003, page 3).

However, the teacher needs to be ready to prompt the children in their questioning. By

providing the children with a narrative, a guest speaker and opportunities to explore and

observe sources, this scheme of work provides these prompts. The teacher has a clear plan of

where the questions need to lead, so that the whole six weeks worth of cross-curricular work

can be based on the questions raised in the first session (Roden, 2009).

Forming questions is a fundamental process that cuts across the curriculum (Stafford, 2009)

and most importantly questions are vital for the childrens continued learning. As Mackay

stresses there are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped

asking questions (Mackay, 1992). These questions may not be suitable for the lesson or

topic, but it is possible to stimulate these types of questions, to model them for the class and

to provide them with an effective scaffold that will allow them to build up their own

questions, showing the children the connection between specific questions and the purposes

of questioning (Stafford, 2009).

Through children generating their own questions and then investigating the answers for

themselves using a range of sources, they meet two of the requirements of the National

Curriculum, History Key Stage Two, Knowledge, Skills and Understanding 3 (Historical

Interpretation) and 4 (Historical Enquiry).

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Oral History

The use of a visitor rather than the children just reading an account in a book is this scheme

of works wow factor. A wow factor is an event that emotionally engages and drives the

children to want to understand and know more (Barnes, 2011, page 9). By having a visitor

who has actually experienced the events, makes the learning varied and helps children to take

their learning beyond school and place it in a wider context. Using oral history in this way

can be a boost to the children and their imagination, as they can use it as a stimulus for their

work; they dont have to learn it as a set of dry facts, but can write it for themselves

(Thompson, 2000). It can also encourage them to go and ask the people in their family and

local area about their own recollections (about the war in this case, but not necessarily) giving

their learning a direct relevance (Bage, 2000).

Interviewing a person who actually experienced the war as a child in Southampton is similar

to the drama technique of hot seating. This is where an adult or child takes on the role of a

character to be asked about their experiences and feelings. However, where

this is a useful probing technique which seeks to develop knowledge of a character

motives, attitudes and behaviour and increases awareness of the complex nature of

human behaviour (Grainger, 2005, page 40),

by using someone who has actually experienced the war, this increases the childrens

appreciation of all these things as they know it is someones life they are hearing about. It

also gives the children knowledge of the events that they can use later on during other

lessons, where they need to think about how they would have been feeling if they had been

there to experience the events.

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Differentiation

To ensure that the intended learning outcomes and the work needed to achieve them is fully

accessible to all children a range of differentiated strategies are used. For example in the first

session the children will be working in mixed ability groups so that the more able children

can support the lower ability in devising questions that can be used throughout the topic.

The use of role play, that is to say the day long evacuation, is also a very useful tool in terms

of differentiation. Piaget would say, from concrete to conceptual understanding (Piaget

1978), while Bruner would phrase it as, experience and do rather than transmit (Bruner

1977). Both mean that it is better to do and experience than to just be told something. This is

explained by Harris and Luff when they illustrate the point by showing how the progression

from practical experiences, to illustrations, to written resources, can provide access to

documents that might otherwise have seemed remote and inaccessible to the children (Harris

& Luff 2004). Therefore using role play aids the lower ability children by making the whole

topic that much more accessible, and it also aids the higher ability children by pushing them

to look at primary sources that they may have thought were inaccessible before, when they

were just looking at them.

The lessons all have learning outcomes that are differentiated to allow the children to achieve

them through the different steps to success that are included in the scheme of work. It is up to

the individual teacher to ensure that they focus on the individual children that are in their

class.

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Every teacher knows that truly effective learning and teaching focuses on individual

children, their strengths, their needs, and the approaches which engage, motivate and

inspire them (DFES, 2003, page 39).

Conclusion

This scheme of work is designed to make the events of the Second World War come alive for

the children. It tries to make the topic motivating and help sustain high quality useful learning

(Barnes 2011), while making sure that the children meet many of the requirements of the

National Curriculum. It works to make the topic as cross curricular as possible as this has

been found to be highly motivating for some, even most, children, (Barnes 2011). It allows

history to cross the curriculum into literacy in the childrens writing, drama in their role play

and hot seating of the visitor, ICT in the childrens question writing and finally PSHE and

citizenship as the children can learn to appreciate the feelings and attitudes of the people

involved.

An enquiry based topic has been planned so that the children can investigate and ask their

own questions, thus making it as motivating and interesting as possible. By giving the

children a range of primary and secondary sources they can begin to learn to constructively

criticise sources and how they represent the past and if they represent the evidence that they

are looking for to answer their questions (Gillespie 2007). The scheme of work is designed so

that a range of differentiated strategies are used to help the children to reach the intended

learning outcomes and the work needed to achieve them is fully accessible to all children.

The best examples of this are giving support frameworks to the children to provide them with

help in their writing and prompts of ideas to include in their work as well as the continual

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work that is done in mixed ability groups so that the more able children can support those of a

lower ability.

The life of children in Southampton during World War Two has been designed to enable the

children to actively achieve two of the five intended outcomes of the Every Child Matters

document during the lessons. The children will all have the opportunity to enjoy and achieve

in their history lessons and can make a positive contribution to their own learning and that of

the whole class (DFES, 2003).

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Bibliography

Alexander, J., Walsh, P., Jarman, R. & McClune B. (2008) From rhetoric to reality:

advancing literacy by cross-curricular means, Curriculum Journal, 19 (1), pp. 23-35.

Bage, G. (2000) Thinking history 4-14: teaching, learning, curricula and communities,

London, Routledge Falmer

Barnes, J. (2011 2nd ed) Cross-Curricular Learning 3-14, London, SAGE Publications

Barton, K. (2005) Teaching History: Primary Sources in History Breaking through the

Myths,Phi Delta Kappan, 86 (10) pp. 745-753

Brodie, E. & Thompson, M. (2009) Double Crossed: exploring science and history through

cross-curricular teaching School Science Review, 90 (332) pp. 47-52.

Bruner, J. (1977) The Process of Education, Cambridge, Harvard University Press

Buch, N. & Wolff, T. (2000) Classroom Teaching through InquiryJournal of Professional

Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 126 (3) pp. 105-109.

Dean, J. (2002) History and citizenship: Concepts and practice, Education 3-13:

International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 30 (2) pp. 9-16.

Department for Education & Skills (1999) The National Curriculum, London, HMSO

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Department for Education & Skills (2003)Every child matters, London, HMSO

Department for Education & Skills (2003)Excellence and Enjoyment, London, HMSO

Forrest, M. & Harnett, P. (1996)Key Stage Two History:1, Leamington Spa, Scholastic Ltd

Grainger, T. (2005) Oral Artistry: Storytelling and Drama in Wilson, A. (ed) Creativity in

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Roden, J. (2009 2nd Edn) Raising and Analysing Questions and Use of Secondary Sources in

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