There has been very little published research on the views of KS2 pupils on their history work, other than lots of ranking activities which place history at, or near, the top of the list of most popular subjects. That is both a blessing and a curse. Because the subject is intrinsically so interesting, there is a danger of making the lessons focus on the fascinating detail of past eras and not doing justice to the development of ways of thinking about the past. Given that pupils learn a lot about history from outside school, there is a chance that when children talk with enthusiasm about history, they may not always be referring to the school lessons alone.
So what else could pupils tell us about their history work, apart from whether they enjoy it?
I think it is worth discovering, as you already do I’m sure, what their views are on:
- The topics they liked best, and why;
- The aspects of the history topic they liked best and why;
- The activities they thought were most successful ” What helped them to learn” . They may need prompting with this one;
- The piece of work they were most proud of ;
