The humanities subjects all play an important role in the overall curriculum for primary schools and in inter-curriculum skills. If well instructed, they can teach children vocabulary, creative, literacy, spiritual, social and even nationalistic skills (

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The humanities subjects all play an important role in the overall curriculum for primary schools and in inter-curriculum skills.  If well instructed, they can teach children vocabulary, creative, literacy, spiritual, social and even nationalistic skills (Alexander, 1984).  How these objectives can be achieved will be examined below.

History plays a crucial role in the primary curriculum as it provides solutions to some instrumental questions within our lives.  It allows children to understand how the world around them became what it is today, also allowing them to trace their origin and that of their peers.  Key Stage 1 (KS1) children are usually unfamiliar with historical events, and cannot comprehend the past.  History is the platform for introducing children to this crucial aspect of their lives, and teaches them the ability to piece together different types of information, and learn the principles of drawing conclusions from evidence presented, allowing them to form links between the present day and the past (Cooper, 2000).

As practice shows specific topics and attainment levels within the subject differ from school to school.  It is almost impossible to exhaust all the areas related to history; however it should be noted that one of the most crucial stages occurs when children reach Year 2.  At this point they should possess the ability to place events in sequence from the past and the present, and start to understand the reasons why some events in the past occurred as they did (Bage, 2000).  They should also have the ability to distinguish between the way they are living now, and the way people in the past lived, children are expected to realise that elements of the past were clearly represented in certain ways, stimulating a sense of curiosity in them so they ask questions concerning those past events (Carson, 1984).

When teaching KS1 children, teachers need to realise that they learn best in a practical environment (Kyriacou, 1997).  As practice demonstrates learning can be enhanced through out of school visits, for example museums can provide affluent resources for demonstrating historical events.  This form of teaching provides children with a hands-on opportunity to see how, where, and when certain people in the past lived, as well as helping them to comprehend certain aspects of their curriculum by relating it to images and artefacts.  Children can be provided with objects and information about a central character in a certain topic, for instance King George IV’s reign, and a display of the main players within this historical topic can be useful as a form of reiteration, and act as catalysts for inquiring conversations (Cooper, 2000).  An example which is particularly effective with visual and kinaesthetic learners, is the use of video recordings of the children ‘acting out’ a specific time or event in history. Here, a specific topic is selected such as ‘The Vikings’, then children play out the roles of all the important characters within that topic of study, this makes it seem less rigid and more visual for the children, consequently heightening their chances of remembering (Kyriacou, 1997).

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ICT is incorporated in the teaching of history in a variety of ways. Teachers can use websites made distinctly for the history curriculum, providing a pictorial view of past events and important historical figures, and provide activities that children can perform in groups or individually in order to understand a certain topic precisely. Examples of effective websites that teachers can use to incorporate ICT within their learning experience include: ‘The time trail’ - here children learn about important topics in the history curriculum through colourful displays.  ‘Quizam’ - this allows children to measure their understanding of the subject matter through ...

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