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 multiple perspectives (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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including group mind maps, letters, diaries, interviews and non-chronological reports, all of which require a different purpose, audience and layout.

Many opportunities have been created to use drama throughout this scheme of work. This is clearly seen in the fifth session, where the children spend the day living as evacuees. Using drama in history gives children the chance to gain experience of the past and to feel what life was like, creating their own understanding of it (Siebrger, Weldon & Dean, 2004). By using role play in this way the children can empathise with the evacuees and try to understand what happened to them and why. However, there are limitations to this. The children will not be leaving school and will be dressed in 1940s clothes; this will make them more excitable and liable to misbehave. The teacher will need to ensure that they have good behaviour management and make it clear the reasons for spending the day in character, so that the children have the right expectations for the day. It is important to remember that it is not pretending to recreate something that has happened just for the sake of acting. It involves being able to feel what it must have been like to be in a particular place, faced with a particular problem, and finding out how people in the past responded in that situation. The purpose is to give children background experience so that they can explain better what happened. (Siebrger, Weldon & Dean, 2004, page 6)

There are also opportunities for the use of ICT, particularly when the children have to write a letter explaining what they have been through during their evacuation and when constructing a list of questions to ask the visitor. It is important though, that the ICT is not overpowering, as it is a means to an end when teaching and learning history (Smith, 2007). This can be seen as a limitation with this scheme of work as there is not a broad provision for the inclusion of ICT. However, as much of it is spent living in a World War Two mind set, it

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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 War Two 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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Sources primary and secondary

As part of the enquiry based teaching, historical sources will be used by the children to study and interpret as a stimulus to create questions about the subject area. It is important for the children to understand fully the sources so that they do not just ask questions such as What is it? and Where is it from? They need to consider the condition of the source, any inscription (if there is one) and its function. Some practitioners, such as Barton, disagree in the use of sources in the primary classroom. He would argue that if the teachers are not certain in their own historical skills and pedagogy then using sources would not work in the primary classroom. He states that, if teachers are not reflective about the best use of such materials, they may engage students in exercises that are neither historically nor instructionally sound (Barton 2005, page 745). Gillespie would argue that the central principle of history is that teachers should choose a range of sources for a topic (Gillespie 2007) and that they need to be used in the primary classroom for children to fully appreciate the issues involved.

It is important that although this scheme of work relies on using sources (such as books, objects used during the war and a visiting speaker) it is vital that the sources are properly examined by the teacher prior to the lesson. As both Barton and Gillespie would argue, the teacher needs to properly consider the sources and how they represent the evidence the class is looking for. If teachers have this critical approach to sources then they are likely to pass it on to the children when they look at the sources for themselves (Gillespie 2007).

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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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Roden, J. (2009 2nd Edn) Raising and Analysing Questions and Use of Secondary Sources in Ward, H., Roden, J., Hewlett, C. & Foreman, J. (ed) Teaching Science in the Primary Classroom, London, Sage Publications.

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