We have worked with a number of primary schools in Salford through the Digital Salford project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Teachers have reported being unsure where to start with including more local history in their lessons. We have responded to this by piloting some work with KS1 classes around the city to inform how we develop new learning resources to support the new history curriculum.
Curriculum areas supported
Key Stage 1
Changes within living memory
Lives of significant individuals
Significant events, people and places in their own locality
Key Stage 2
Understanding how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources
A local history study
Changes in an aspect of social history
A significant turning point in local history
Local history may also support other subjects including geography, citizenship, art and literacy, and be used in cross-circular work.
Needs identified by teachers include:
Photographs to show changes in the streets and landscape of the local area over the last 50 years
Photographs showing changes to the streets immediately around the school
Non-visual historical resources to complement the photographic materials
Photographs that could relate to paintings done by L S Lowry of the locality, with the intention of teaching the topic in a cross-circular way to involve both history and art
The piloted activities and outputs include:
Electronic versions of photographs produced for the school showing a wide range of local scenes from the school’s local area over the last 50 years
Photographs of specific well-known or important buildings in the local area that may or may not still be standing
Photographs of buildings or places that relate to landmarks or scenes in paintings
Extracts from books in Salford Local History Library, which provided a range of information and historical evidence to be used in school alongside the photographs
One school has produced local history boxes, including photographs, maps, clothing and objects to share between classes
Cross-circular working including field trips, role play and creative writing and literacy activities
Resources and Support Available
A Digital Salford website was launched in autumn 2015, which allows users to search thousands of photographs of Salford from the past 100 years. We encourage teachers to use this resource to gather local history material to support classroom teaching and the creation of new activities, lesson plans and worksheets. We also encourage teachers to share any new resources that use our local history photographs with us, so that other teachers can be inspired by this work.
For more information or to submit new resources please contact Naomi Lewis at naomi.lewis@scll.co.uk.
Salford Local History Library is home to over 70,000 photographs of the city, as well as newspaper archives, maps, electoral registers, trade directories, pamphlets and a wealth of local history material. Appointments can be made with the Local History Librarian to get you started with finding resources, please call Duncan McCormick on 0161 778 0814.
