Sweyne Park School
A real sense of the past can nourish pupils as they learn about the lives of the people who have brought us to today, but chronological understanding can often be patchy. To help, we designed giant individual timelines for pupils to develop and maintain year on year. This provides a skeleton on which the narrative of our, and others' histories, can be explored; enabling us to weave between themes, topics, continents and centuries, adding to pupils’ sense of identity and community. To enhance our environment and consolidate their sense of period, pupils also designed and created a new mural of the English Royal families with our artist in residence.
In keeping with our mission statement, which states that History helps pupils better understand the present, we wanted to engage pupils with current and topical events related to history. To model intellectual curiosity, all department members met once a term with high- performing Year 9 pupils at round table discussions. Pupils were given the chance to research and create projects, based on a selection of current articles from popular history magazines. Projects included a display board related to the release of the film ‘Valkyrie’, researching and evaluating this interpretation of the event. Pupils also created articles related to the ‘Kindertransport’ anniversary and they organised and hosted a visit by a local survivor. Pupils thus gained a sense of how history and current events are linked and how our past is a remarkable mosaic created by the extraordinary contributions of seemingly ordinary individuals.
Sweyne Park School is a mixed comprehensive school for pupils aged 11-16 years and is based in Essex.