[clairereds]

I suppose medicine through time is a pile of rubbish too?

[clairereds]

Im interested. I am putting together my GCSE course at the moment and have very little experience. I am doing medicine which the kids find very interesting. I will do Germany for my depth study- but I admit I was thinking about doing the Jack the Ripper coursework.

What would you recommend?

[Stephen Drew]

Claire

I would advise that you wait until someone who actually teaches the Jack the Ripper coursework posts in this thread and is able to explain their justification for doing so as well as their rational for the historical value of such a topic to their delivery of a GCSE course. I cannot offer this to you, so my thoughts are more focussed on the rational for the full range of topics available at SHP.

We have clearly heard one side of the argument regarding that topic I shall hope to hear from people who teach the topic and are therefore fully in a position to expand upon its merits or shortcomings.

I think the point about such a topic as a coursework surely has to be whether or not it delivers the necessary historical skills in a suitably rigorous manner. If producing a coursework on Jack the Ripper requires students to make a skilled use of a wide range of source evidence and to give interpreations of that evidence in order to obtain their marks, whilst producing a well structured and thoughtful narrative / analysis, then that is surely a valid argument for such a topic.

Of course if the Jack the Ripper (or similar) topic does not allow / require such a valid historical scenario then of course it is not valid as a GCSE topic. The SHP course is built around the premise that the devlivery of historical skills to students is the key. The topic for the delivery of those skills (and then the opportunity for students to show their development of said skills) is surely in that regard irrelevant.

Therefore it is surely the case that whatever topic is being taught by History teachers and studied by students is valid as long as its Scheme of Work and assessment criteria match the requirements set out in the exam board's specification. Clearly a large number of successful and skilled History teachers are sure that Jack the Ripper as a coursework does meet the standards required, and therefore teach it.

However, as I have said, we shall await with great interest the delivery of a post (or posts) from those who actually teach the course on Jack the Ripper, as we have not yet recieved this contextualised set of thoughts.

[Andrew Field]

You do a local study really successfully don't you Stephen? It might be good to explain the positives of that...

[Stephen Drew]

Indeed we do Andrew.

We study the development in the 18th / 19th century of the key streets in Old Harlow. The focus here is on the influence of the coach trade that went through the town. To put it basically (as I constantly try to with our Year 10s ) Harlow was a backwater before the coach trade led to a massive increase in wealth and prospoerity for the traders and craftsmen of the town in the 18th and 19th century. Harlow sat roughly in the middle of the London to Cambridge Road and stage coaches stopped in the town during their journey. This led to trade for inns, hotels, shops, blacksmiths, stables etc. As a result Harlow grew rich on the profits. This then ended after 1860 when the railway destroyed the coach trade.

In order to study this we look at census records for 1841 and 1871 to see where people who lived in the area were born. We look at family sizes and jobs. WE hve a whole day in the old town visiting the Mill and Canalised River Stort (paid for by the businessmen of the town in the 18th century). We visit Harlow Museum and look at their displays and records. We take the students on a guided walk along the key roads of the 18th and 19th century pointing out buildings such as the old police station, fire station, inns, stables, blacksmiths etc. We end up in Fore Street in Old Harlow which was the centre of the trade and carry out a detailed study of the architecture and layout of the area. Most of the buildings of the 18th and 19th century still remain intact and allow us to really bring the history alive for the students.

Our department feel it is so valuable for the students in our school as Harlow is a post 1948 "new" town where all our students live in some of the new areas that used to be small villages and hamlets in the 19th century. Many have never even been to Old Harlow let alone walked around what is still a beautifal Essex town that is simply now attached to a massive "new" town development.

Local studies are so valuable and one about your town or even a street in your town / village is a reall opportunity to bring the whole GCSE study right back down to earth.

[JohnDClare]

andy_walker, on Oct 10 2003, 10:25 PM, said:

I dislike the American west as a "study in depth" because it's...  under researched and under resourced.

The chief advantage of the American West was that the pupils LOVED it!

Yes, also, it was easier - though I can't see what's wrong with that - I think most GCSE History is far too hard for busloads of students who love History and can thrive on simpler concepts and more approriate content, and what's wrong with that? I have no misgivings that American West was not meaningful history.

However, there is little doubt that - apart from some excellent resources on the Mormon from the Church of the Latter Day Saints - the subject is terribly under-resourced.
In the end I moved off SHP to a Modern World syllabus precisely because my pupils can go off and find out some extra stuff for themselves. When I was doing SHP, I just got to feel that EVERY SINGLE BIT of information had to come from my mouth or my typewriter, and all the pupils did was sit there like fledgelings in a nest with their mouths open.

Of course, all this was before the internet and all the wonderful Teacher-websites that there are now. But, having tried to write a book on the American West recently, I have a suspicion that it's STILL easier to send pupils away to 'find out more about...' for a Modern World than an American West topic.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

What's your beef, Walker? I've changed to do Cowboys and Indians AND The Whitechapel Murders.

The American West is taught to encourage a lot of thinking about the role of the USA in the world today. I think. It's alright.

Ripper's a good bit of coursework as well. We do the American Invasion of Viet Nam as well you know...

And you can't say that Crime, Punishment and Protest doesn't encourage an anti-authoritarian view of the system...General Strike, Suffragettes, Luddites, transportation, Bloody Code, London Dock Strike, etc -

Far more history 'from below' than the machinations of the ruling classes in international relations squabbles you get in Modern World History...

[Dave Wallbanks]

In terms of uptake the Jack the Ripper materials are already getting my year9 pupils talking excitedly about when they get to pick history as their option! It's a vote winner, bums on seats etc but it has a great value because there's no answer. Who did it? We'll never know and the mystery is the thrill of making your own mind up about what happened and why? My class are desperate to do it and I'm really digging around to deliver a unit worthy of my pupils. It'll involve a trip to London and some fantastic simple coursework.
As for the rest well I'm just starting my SHP course and already the interest in my new place is developing. Crime development study is fascinating and Nazi Germany taps into what our pupils already know.
I'll look at a local study but I prefer to establish myself in my college first then go for even more originality in GCSE studies.

[Dan Moorhouse]

I must say I'm very very surprised by Andy's comments about Jack the Ripper. As a unit of study it must be one to the most engaging options available to teachers. Students are given a good overview of the conditions in which people lived in Whitechapel at the time, its got the blood and guts to keep 'lads' interested and has a wide range of possible right answers. From it you can deliver a history of the social classes of the day, develop students skills in terms of research, evaluation, identifaction and use of interpretations, you could build it into a link with forensics... where on earth is the problem with the study?

I don't use it at KS4 as I've coursework options that my students like and do well on. However, in Year 9 I have a optional unit of 6 lessons that we let students pick. Options: Jack the Ripper, Titanic, History of Sport and History of Popular Music. First time we've given them a choice - result - 100% voted for Jack.

[Dafydd Humphreys]

I think the fact that we adults have a responsibility to give the students what they want is a biggy.

I myself, as Stephen and Neil know (!) am obsessed with Twentieth Century history, and Cold War politics from the napalming of Greeks by the RAF in 1948 to the invasion of Grenada.

However the vast majority of my students don't give a flying proverbial, and quite right that they don't as they are not politically aware enough to understand why America supported mass-murder gangs in El Salvador in the 1970s and why Britain slaughtered Kenyans in the 1950s.

I hope that when it comes to further study of history and a sparked interest they will pursue these fields further.

However, at the age of 14 if someone would have offered me a choice of reading the 'Dear Boss' letter (followed by a riveting debate about the role of the press in social and criminal history, linked with the recent footballers scandal), or the fineprint of the Truman Doctrine...I know what I'd have chosen.

This is coming from someone (myself) who was turned off History at this age and chose Colouring-In rather instead for GCSEs.