St.Joseph's Catholic
Primary School
"Love one another as I have loved you."
History
Learning about humanity's past enables us to create our future. It allows us to see the multicultural nature of the world, our interconnectedness, the repetition of cause and consequence and what it is to be human. We use the lessons of the past to create the citizens of the future. .
History is an amazing opportunity for more engaging learning - themed days, character driven learning, using artefacts and role play. The images below show some of our children's favourite activities in the history curriculum, including trips to Conisbrough Castle, the Queen's crown competitions for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, a themed Greek Day for Year 5 and 6 and some Art and Design work with dinosaurs in Year 1. These are typical of the history that our children experience each term:
HEPP DT have been supporting some of our history projects including making Spitfires in Year 6 and making catapulting weapons in Year 4.
ROTHERHAM SCHOOLS' LIBRARY SERVICE
The library service are great for topic boxes for the History curriculum. We have used them throughout school to engage our children in the study of the past. The library service also have staff who come in to school to teach classes using their resources. Sarah and Emma came into Year 1 recently to teach the children all about Victorian times.
HISTORY IS NEVER DULL AND BORING IN OUR SCHOOL
Our teachers like to use a range of engaging techniques to teach the history curriculum. We use a cross curricular approach using drama, art, design and technology and music to enhance and support the teaching and learning in history. We like to carry out research, investigations and interviews of evidence and people. The video below shows Year 1 using drama to debate whether they would like to have gone to school in Victorian times or modern times; the photos show children interviewing our Chair of Governors about the history of our school; the children are role playing a primary source of evidence from a Victorian school teacher and a Victorian child in order to empathise with both sides of a story and the photos demonstrate a range of art and some Year 6 poetry.
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HISTORY IS NOT JUST THE PAST - IT IS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US, ALL THE TIME.
History can be a shared experience at the local and national level. We try to link to significant events happening in our local area and nationally.
CELEBRATING THE 200TH BIRTHDAY OF PARKGATE IN RAWMARSH
As part of the birthday celebrations for our local area of Parkgate, our Year 2 children took part in a Whit parade. They dressed as Victorian children to look as authentic as possible. They were treated to a ride on a period bus, had a picnic in the local park and processed around the park with their maypole decorations. Everyone had a wonderful time and our local area turned 200!
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SUPPORTING A LOCAL BLUE PLAQUE
A new blue plaque was unveiled in Rawmarsh recently and some of our children went to celebrate a local historical figure. Sir Charles John Stoddart had a distinguished career. He rose meteorically through the ranks at Parkgate Ironworks, he rose to the rank of Colonel in the Volunteers of the 5th York and Lancaster Regiment and was Mayor of Rotherham on more than one occasion. He was given the freedom of the town and a Knighthood for his services to the community. A truely great man, who we are very proud of.
CORONATION OF KING CHARLES III
As part of our celebrations for the Coronation of King Charles III, each class in school studied a King, Queen or theme relating to monarchy from our English / British history. We then looked at Charles' family history and what happens at a coronation. We investigated the significance of the Sovereign's septre and orb and the different parts of the ceremony. To help us celebrate this national event, we wore red, white and blue, held a crown competition and invited parents to join us for fun activities in school. As a souvenir of this special event, we gave each child a commemorative medal.
REMEMBRANCE DAY SEWING CLUB
We invited children to a lunch time sewing club to make poppies for the Remembrance Day exhibition at Clifton Park Museum in Rotherham town centre. They turned out brilliantly and now we are creating an after school sewing club.
REMEMBRANCE DAY 2022
We also remembered our fallen soldiers in class. We spent the morning looking into the people and events that Remembrance Day commemorates and then participated in the 1 minute silence at 11 o'clock to pay our respects.
Click on the images below to download the documents that we use to support teaching the National Curriculum in St Joseph's:
The History Handbook contains our
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The Intent (our philosophy for teaching history)
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The Implementation (how we deliver the Intent in our teaching and learning)
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The Impact of our teaching and learning (how much our children like and learn about history)