Students have recently enjoyed some exciting History lessons and benefitted from a multimedia approach to the subject. One of our students brought in family artefacts from both British and German relatives ranging back to the Second World War. The students were fascinated to look at items such as identity cards, photographs of the time, letters home and army medals and documentation. They were able to handle a German ceremonial dagger (in its scabbard!) from the Second World War and a German medal and certificate for motherhood (the latter either signed by or on behalf of Hitler) giving an understanding of the effect on ordinary lives of living through a time of warfare.
Students have also been participating in the Willesden Lane Project and studying the Holocaust and Kindertransport during WWII and learning about Jewish life in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in the run-up to the Second World War. Students watched a live webcast in which a survivor of this period was interviewed and students will be going to a performance of a play based on this book, at the Central Hall in Westminster.
Year 8 visited the Tower of London as part of their study of the Tudor period. They saw the Crown Jewels and the ‘Torture at the Tower’ exhibition and visited The Fusilier Museum and the White Tower which includes exhibitions of armour and weapons. The students also participated in a workshop ‘Imprisonment, execution and escape’ which investigated religious prisoners in the Elizabethan period and focused on key historical skills such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance. Students were able to consolidate their knowledge and understanding of the history of this period, especially the significant religious developments of the time.
