This advice is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to integrate history, geography, literacy and ICT.
Start the topic with a brief discussion with the children about where they are going on their summer holidays this year or where have they been in the past/favourite holiday. How did they get there? What different clothes did they wear? What did they do that they don’t normally do? Explain that we will be looking at seaside holidays in the past, going back 100 years. You may well want to start this topic with 4 largely geography-based questions about the seaside today, such as:
- KQ1. What do we mean by the seaside?
- KQ2. Why did some places become seaside resorts?
- KQ3. Which seaside areas do people visit today and why?
- KQ4. What is a seaside resort like today?
You then pick up on the history which deals with the following concepts:
- Characteristic features of Victorian seaside holidays
- Enquiry. How do we know about something that happened beyond living memory?
- Cause. Why did people start going to the seaside at this time?
- Change. How holidays changed over time within the last 100 years.
You will then want to move into some more history-focussed questions. As you do so, try to be aware of the opportunities for progression. When working, for example, with a mixed-aged class you will want your younger and lower-attaining children to focus on then and now, but by the time they reach Year 2 most should be thinking about the idea of change, how the recent past (when Granny was a girl) is different from the distant past 100 year ago as well as from today.
You will find questions 5, 6 and Question 7 provided for you. See Downloadable Resources. All the objectives, activities and resources for the remaining questions are available to subscribers only.
Key question 5: What were seaside resorts really like 100 years ago? (links to Ofsted Outstanding Lesson)
Key question 6: How do we know what seaside holidays were like 100 years ago, when there is no-one alive today to tell us?
Key question 7: What sort of things did people do at the seaside 100 years ago? (links to Ofsted Outstanding Lesson)
Key Question 8: Did people 100 years ago go to the seaside for the same reasons as we do today?
Key Question 9: How can we work out if people enjoyed their seaside holidays100 years ago?
Key Question 10: How have seaside holidays changed over the last 100 years? This is intended to provide progression for Y2 and abler pupils.
Key Question 11: Would you prefer a seaside holiday today, 50 years ago or a 110 years ago.
The planner ends with a question about the future which introduces a lot of creative thinking too and makes it relevant to children’s lives.
