Excalibur Primary SchoolWhat it's like to be a historian at Excalibur
"My teacher always gets excited to teach history. It makes me excited to learn all about it."
"I really like history! I love learning all about the past."
"I love it when we do activities where we get to move around the classroom and learn from each other."
"I like being able to tell my parents all about what we have learnt."
EYFS
In Reception, we have been history detectives! After reading the story of, 'Peepo', we talked about what life was like in the past when Alan was a baby. We started our sentences with, "In the past...". We had to investigate a number of different mysterious objects from the past. We had to think about what they might have been used for and we had a go at using them. We also shared two further stories to further deepen our understanding of how life was different in the past.
Year 1
We have been learning all about the history of toys in year 1. During our learning we have explored a variety of different types of toys, including modern toys, toys from when our grandparents were young and toys from the Victorian times. We sorted the different toys into old and new, thinking carefully about what they were made from, what they looked like and how they worked. To finish our topic, we set up our own toy museum for the year 2 children to visit. We made our own exhibits by writing information labels which told the museum visitors whether the toy was old or new, when it was from and how we knew when it was from.
.JPG)
We have been learning all about Grace Darling in year 1. We started our learning by taking on the role of history detectives to try and work out why Grace Darling is famous and still remembered today. We learnt all about her famous rescue and we thought carefully about why she chose to go out in such poor weather to save the men from the SS Forfarshire. Our learning also involved exploring the different historical sources available to learn all about Grace and her achievements, including why she is pictured alone on some images and with her father on others. To finish our learning, we investigated how sea rescue has improved since Grace Darling's rescue by ordering life boats on a timeline and comparing them.
Year 2
We have had an 'out of this world' time learning all about the moon landings in year 2! We have learnt all about the astronauts who took that giant leap for mankind, considering why they chose to risk their lives to go to the moon. We have used different sources of information to learn about what they did on the moon, as well as how they got there and back safely. We also had a debate about whether or not space exploration should continue.
We have taken lots of trips to the seaside in year 2, learning all about seaside holidays in the past and comparing them to those in the present day. We have enjoyed interrogating a number of different historical sources, considering what we can learn about holidays in the past. We have learnt all about what people did on holiday 100 years ago and what seaside resorts were like. We have ordered photos and images of seaside holidays from different time periods on our own timeline, thinking about the clues in the images which tell us what time period it is from. Year 2 were excited to learn about the reasons that people went to the seaside 100 years ago - there were some reasons which were very different to why we go on holiday today.
Year 3
As part of their Ancient Egypt topic, year 3 tried their hand at tomb raiding! They took on the role of archaeologists in Howard Carter's team and crawled through the 'tomb' to find out what artefacts were hidden inside. Each archaeologist had to observe the artefacts and then feedback to their team about what they had found. It gave them a first-hand experience of the role of an archaeologist and they were able to appreciate how much knowledge and information can be gained from the artefacts found inside a pharoah's tomb.
Year 4
In Year 4, we have been learning about The Victorians. We have been on a journey through Victorian life, learning about what the main changes were which took place during the Victorian era, what life was like for children and poor people and how travel and transport developed culminating in a reflection about whether the Victorian Era was a 'golden age' or whether it should be known as a 'dark age'. To celebrate their learning, Year 4 took part in an exciting and engaging Victorian workshop where they gained a first-hand experience into what Victorian life was like.
Year 5
In Year 5, we have been learning all about the Mayan civilisation. Why did the Mayan empire grow to be so powerful? What was life like at the height of the Mayan civilisation? How can we possibly know what it was like there 1000 years ago? Year 5 can tell you! They completed a variety of different learning tasks to find out the answers to all of those questions, ending their topic by investigating the different reasons why the Mayan empire ended so quickly.
Year 5 have taken a trip to Ancient Greece where they have learnt all about what life was like there 2500 years ago and considered how we can learn about things that happened so long ago. We took on the role of history detectives to explore what can be learnt about everyday life in Ancient Athens from pottery evidence that remains. We learnt about why Athens was able to be so strong during the 5th and 6th century BC, followed by a comparison of Athens and Sparta. One of the most exciting activities was a market place activity where we took on the role of different Athenians visiting the agora. During the activity, we had to introduce ourselves to fellow Athenians to learn all about the different kinds of people who visited the agora and why.
