History of Wirral - The Development of Wirral Teachers Notes

This programme is the first in a multimedia series. It is designed to support teaching and learning in history at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4. It contains many features which support also the development of literacy, numeracy, ICT and thinking skills.

It is particularly suitable to support the key stage 2 study on the Victorians and the required local dimension of the key stage 3 study Britain 1750 - 1900.

Suggested familiarisation routeway for teachers

1. On the contents page click on ‘Tasks’. Select ‘Teachers Help’ on next page. Enter password, ‘Wirral’. Click on ‘Teacher’s Help’. Note that this is only available through the internet connection on the Wirral Learning Grid. Run through the options here to familiarise yourself with the note-taking guides and other useful tasks.

2. Click on 'General Help' to get an overview of how to use the package.

3. Click on 'Note-taking'. Print out by clicking on menu if you wish. Then follow the instructions to create notes to support the task. Pupils will be engaged in good ICT skills and good history skills of extracting information. It will not be sufficient to merely print out parts of the text. It has to be ‘transformed’ for another audience.

4. The same skills should be applied to enable pupils to complete the 'Obituary' task. A newspaper template and notes on Journalistic style is included.

5. Click on ‘Letter’. This task requires pupils to use the Abbey Street Census data to write a letter to Year 9 pupils in 1881 explaining how people’s jobs have changed between 1841 and 1881 and to show the reasons for the change. Again a writing frame is provided and notes on letter writing style.

6. Click on graph task. Now go back and clck on 'Census Data' to find the Census Data for all areas of Wirral 1801 to 1921. Pupils can use Excel to create a graph for population growth in their own area during this period and then compare it with the graph for Birkenhead. The growth of Birkenhead in the mid-nineteenth century provides a classic case study of the growth of Victorian towns. Good numeracy and ICT skills as well as history.

7. Click on 'Extended Writing'. Here is a useful group task using the programme and the ‘ripple diagram’ to help pupils develop their extended writing skills in history.

Sections 8,9 and 10 involve pupils in working through the programme to complete the tasks.

This is useful in creating a specific focus as they work through the history materials. It also gives practice in useful ICT skills as well as thinking skills.

8. Click on 'Graph'. This activates the graph feature of the programme. Work through the text. Whenever the graph icon appears pupils can ‘drag and drop’ the census information for Birkenhead and place it on the graph. The end result is a graph for the growth of Birkenhead from 1801 to 1881. Pupils can also compare the size of the population of Birkenhead with that of Wirral for 1801 and 1881. They can write about the reasons for the change. They can also compare it with the growth of their own area during the same period. (See 6)

9. Click on Timeline 1. This activates the pictorial timeline. Pupils can ‘drag and drop ‘ the pictures onto their timeline when the timeline icon appears. They can print it out in landscape format.

10. Click on Timeline 2. This activates the text timeline. Pupils can ‘drag and drop’ the text onto the appropriate date and create a timeline which they can also print out as a support for extended writing.

Your time will be up before you can complete these tasks, but do take a look at them to ensure you are aware of the range of features of the programme. We hope you enjoy it. We want it to be interactive and to grow and schools can develop and contribute their own resources and tasks. So please keep us in touch with your own developments.