Introduction to Schools in the Past
What is evidence? Here the children are introduced briefly to various types of evidence such as buildings and artefacts . They will encounter many of these later in the unit.
Teachers can consolidate the work which children encounter in this section by showing further examples of evidence and placing some types of evidence on display so that children might examine them more closely. The pieces of evidence on display should be specifically related to schools in the past.
Visual evidence: Pictures, drawings or photographs. Show (using local pictures if possible) how pictures give information about what schools looked like.
Written evidence: Descriptions of schools or records about the teachers and children who attended them may be found in books, letters and old documents. Examples of old schools textbooks and children's work.
Oral evidence: when people tell about something they have experienced. It needs to be explained that this can be told orally or might later be written as evidence about people's lives is in the form of autobiography, biography or memoir. Children could be encouraged to interview an older person about their time in primary schools.
Artefacts: these are items from the past like old school books, benches or pens. School buildings are also artefacts. Children need to know that generally the older the building or artefact , for example a schoolhouse or school bell from the early 1900's, the more valuable it is.
Museums: Use examples of museum web sites or postcards from museums to show how they have collections of precious artefacts.
Folk Parks: example of preserved school buildings from Cultra are found within this section.