It worked for me: key stage 3 cameos

Contents | Over the top: using cross-curricular links to teach the First World War

If it’s so important, why haven’t we done it before?

So complained the pupils at four very different Nottinghamshire schools when confronted with the history of Ireland in the Modern World Study (part of their GCSE History [SHP]) for the first time.

Their history teachers^[1] responded by radically reappraising the way they thought about the course and trying to make it more enjoyable and meaningful for the pupils.

Identifying problems

The teachers conducted a questionnaire, which tested pupils’ knowledge and understanding of conflict in Ireland. Three points of major concern emerged from the questionnaire.

Devising and implementing a pathway

The teachers set about devising a pathway, through key stage 3 history, which highlighted the turning points in the history of Ireland and Anglo-Irish relations. Their guiding principles were to:

They found it surprisingly easy to adjust the curriculum to make room for the pathway and had access to the expertise and resources of Ireland in Schools (liS)^[2]. Their pathway addressed the following key questions.

Drawing on resources

The teachers developed the pupils’ historical skills and imagination using a range of resources, including those described below.

The teachers adapted a unit of work originally designed by Paul Bracey, Senior Lecturer in Education (History) at University College, Northampton, and Alison Gove-Humphries, a Teacher Adviser with the Birmingham Advisory and Support Service. The unit on 1916 shows how thinking skills can be developed through history, literacy and citizenship.

Comprising a student workbook and notes for teachers, the unit poses the question ‘Fighting for whom?’ and considers why some Irish men and women fought against the British army, and appealed for German aid, while others joined the British army to fight against Germany.

The unit draws not only on recent historical writings about the First World War years in Ireland but also draws on two historical novels that tell the experience of 1916 through the eyes of two young people, Jimmy Conway and Amelia Pim, from very different backgrounds.

Jimmy Conway (The Guns of Easter by Gerard Whelan) is a Catholic living in the Dublin slums. With his father away in France with the British Army, and his uncle, Mick, taking part in the Rising, Jimmy feels he must be the provider for his mother and two younger sisters. Setting out to find food or money, he finds himself adrift in a nightmare version of the world he had known.

Amelia Pim (No Peace for Amelia by Siobhán Parkinson) lives in a Quaker family in a well-off district of Dublin. Amelia’s boyfriend is Frederick Goodbody, while one of her best friends is a Catholic, Mary-Ann, the family’s cook-general. Frederick, though a Quaker, volunteers to join the British army and is killed, whereas Mary-Ann’s elder brother, Patrick, is a member of the Irish Volunteers and takes part in the Easter Rising to gain Irish independence from Britain.

An examination of loyalist and republican murals helped pupils to understand and remember the main sources of difference in Northern Ireland. A simple grid, asking pupils to identify murals through use of colour, images/symbols, historical references, personality and language, focused their minds and prompted much imaginative artwork.

Right, a pupil’s version of a loyalist mural; left, a real mural that can cause confusion, ie is it loyalist or republican?

To develop imaginative insights into the problems of living in a divided society, the teachers used music and the ‘poetry of the troubles’. One of the most telling poems, Enemy Encounter by Padraic Fiacc, depicts an Irishman coming across a British soldier. The chilling last stanza reads:

Even more effective was bringing into schools young people who have lived through conflict in Northern Ireland. The experience of one student teacher made a particular impact. It was the first time this young woman had spoken about this experience outside her family.

In 1991 the IRA placed a 1,000lb bomb in a van outside a police station in a predominantly Protestant village. Many buildings were evacuated, but not a house belonging to one of a handful of Catholic families in the village. Luckily, the 13-year-old girl and her three sisters escaped with only cuts and bruises as the blast almost destroyed the house.

Building on success

For the teachers, the reappraisal became an enjoyable and stimulating experience. This was not only due to the regular meetings in school hours, where problems and possible solutions could be aired, but also due to the support of the School of Education, University of Nottingham, and particularly, a tutor, Anita Linden, the Head of School, Ken Adey, and IiS.

They have now expanded to take in other schools and subjects and are building on their success in two ways. First, they are revising their materials in light of the key stage 3 strategy. Secondly, they are hoping to reinforce the learning experiences of the pupils by collaborating with other subjects, particularly English.

According to the teachers: