We value the views of our pupils and hold termly informal chats with groups of pupils from Year 1-Year 6 to hear what they think about each subject. Each half term we see a different group of children so that we get opinions and ideas from them throughout the school.
November 2024
For this Pupil Voice session we focussed on SOURCES and why they are an important of our learning about history. Children were able to clearly articulate what we mean by sources, and we discussed and explore which types of sources we can use, from historical maps and painting, to objects and gravestones! We looked at many different sources and explore them together, thinking carefully about what questions we can ask of each source. This was following a recent staff CPD session with Warrington Museum.
February 2024
We had a mix of History and Geography questions to explore during our Pupil Voice session. We started by exploring what the children would like to learn about History and Geography and we will look to implement some of these ideas in themed weeks/ days across the curriculum. See the ideas that children suggested using the link below. We then had plenty of discussions around the key questions highlighted below. Some year groups explored History or Geography, and some year groups responded to both depending on what they had covered so far this year.
Click the linked image below to explore some of our pupil responses.
October 2023
Prior Knowledge
During this pupil voice session, we focussed on prior knowledge. We discussed what it meant and then I asked the pupils questions such as 'What do you remember learning about in History/ Geography last year?' and 'Can you go into detail about something you learnt last year?'.
Most of the children were able to articulate areas of study (units/ eras), but they were less able to go into detail about facts and knowledge learnt. After prompting them with specific events or people from a particular era, children we able to go into some detail. This showed that children had an awareness of what made History and what made Geography study, but that we need to address retention of knowledge going forward. This is part of the action plan for History and Geography with us exploring things like formative assessment, quizzing, and regular revisiting (flashback 4s).
Results of the session can be seen my clicking the image below.
Summer 2023
Chronology
During this pupil voice session we focussed on 'Chronology' across Years 1-6. We created a timeline in the hall, where we were given cards to place along the timeline from what we are currently studying or based on what we had studied previously. We then added events of our own. We finished by finding work in our History books that we could also place along the timeline. We demonstrated an amazing knowledge of events spanning over 5000 years. There were also lots of misconceptions discussed as well, like the fact that events can overlap and intertwine, and that our timeline would need to be huge for us to go beyond 3500 BCE. We also discussed what CHRONOLOGY means and why this is an important part of our learning in History.
We used this session to gauge what pupils opinions of the subject were, and I used a questionnaire/ pupil discussions throughout to allow pupils to share their honest opinions with each other and with me. Children were enthusiastic about what they had learnt, and they could articulate clearly about previous topics already covered.
The children expressed their views about what they enjoyed, what helps them, and what vocabulary they can recall from their learning on previous topics. It was promising to see a lot of detail across the range of topics taught. Vocabulary will be a big focus for us moving from Spring to Summer term, as we intend on placing more of an emphasis on this within our planning and teaching.
As is clear above, the children also commented on resources that could be used to help them. Mr. Franklin has placed an order for additional resources for use in classrooms to help learning within the classroom. The school intend on investing in history timelines throughout the school to help support children in and out of the classroom.
Example of Y5 Feedback
Example of Y1 Feedback
We finished the session by discussing what the children would most like to learn about if they were given the choice. It was reassuring to see that comments made by children were already topics we had as part of our curriculum offer. Mr. Franklin will use these to inform curriculum development going into the Summer term, as we intend on placing a greater emphasis on pupil choice within our History/ Geography planning. See notes on these below:
Autumn 2022
First, we discussed the question 'What is History?' and we collected our thoughts and ideas using Menti Meter on our iPads. We gathered these together on the board and read them aloud. Please see our collection of thoughts recorded by clicking the linkhere.
We created a word cloud using all of the words that we associate with History.
We finished by sharing our progress and the pieces of work we were most proud of across the year groups.
