……I’ve taught Early English history – by invitation – at private schools. My teaching aids were flags, symbols and modern made copies of various artefacts from the relevant period. My students were animated and asked a huge number of intelligent questions more than demonstrating their interest….

Out of interest when did you last deliver a session and was the private school following the National Curriculum?

The following news item also adds a little more grist to the mill on this topic http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8542551/Private-schools-preparing-to-dump-the-National-Curriculum.html

For reference the ‘worst’ group that I ever hosted was from a private school with a ‘military focus’.

….If there was as much effort put in to providing Anderson Shelter – type experiences from other periods why shouldn’t children engage just as strongly….

Some do Charlie – one example from my patch that immediately springs to mind is Romano-British! {Their description not mine!} This was used for many school visits.

…..Ironically, teaching World War II history to the Polish children in a British school may be exactly the sort of inclusive curriculum that we need in today’s Britain.

Interesting comment CD – a few years ago one of the school groups I hosted included several Polish boys and they certainly related to evacuee experience; they became even more engaged when they translated the Polish markings on the Zurowski ZP.1 helicopter.

Newark also has a large travelling community and they have also ‘engaged’ with the World War II evacuation topic!

Brilliant! That’s the way to teach history! 😀

It certainly is – you may be surprised to know (or not) that plans are currently afoot to get one installed at NAM! 😉

I’m really looking forward to ‘evacuating’ the Dambusters Hut when the siren goes and heading for the shelter – note to self: let the neighbours know what’s being planned!! 😀

An excellent record of the recovery and some of those photographs were used in “Lincolnshire Air War 1939 – 1945” that I mentioned earlier.

As a slight aside it was Peter Pumfrey and his family who donated the Lancaster fuselage section to Newark Air Museum in 1974 and which is referenced here. Peter was a museum member for many years!

Charlie, equal weighting should be given to all modules that are taught (in all subjects) and those teachers that don’t achieve the grade should be identified as part of the inspection process.

I quite agree that “all history should be treated equally” but under the proposed changes to history on the National Curriculum – primary school children would be taught almost nothing that happened after the year 1688!

Charlie, the whole point of the National Curriculum is that if a topic i.e. history (from whatever era) is on there; then it has to be taught, whether the teacher knows about it or not!

CD, re #40 – the best external input I’ve heard of in recent times was a Lincolnshire school who visited to cover World War II and the father of the teacher had come into school and built them an Anderson Shelter! 🙂

Thanks Charlie, and yes the ‘independents’ might represent an opportunity.

Not really Charlie – because when they left Newark most (if not all) had a greater appreciation of the wartime sacrifice that so many people gave when flying aircraft!

The high number of family visits that NAM receives immediately after a school visit; helps to illustrate that some meaningful connection is being achieved and that educational knowledge is being taken on board.

Not related to the story above but here’s an extract from a personal thank you letter that I received a few weeks ago from a Notts school that visited in February 2013:

“The children enjoyed the experience – they got such a lot out of it. We have made a lovely display at school with photos etc. as part of our literacy lessons we talked about how to write thank you letters and captions to accompany the photos, as well as making a class book telling others what they enjoyed doing on the visit.

Thank you once again for all of your help.”

It makes you feel like you’ve achieved something! 🙂