History at key stage 3    (Year 8)

• Introduce to the whole class a nineteenth-century map of the village/the town/the city in which the school is situated. Pupils locate, as appropriate, the site of the school, their own homes, shops, etc. Hold a class discussion of what has changed, then and now, and what has stayed the same.
• Extend the activity to include a series of local maps, from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Focus on transport, agriculture and factories. Pupils identify, as appropriate to the locality, when and how the field pattern changed; when the canal and the railway line first appeared; when and where factories were built, etc.
• In groups, ask pupils to create a flow chart of local changes over time, showing links between the different industrial changes. The level of difficulty of this activity will vary from locality to locality, according to the maps available and the complexity of the changes. This may need to be broken down into a series of associated activities (one group, for example, focusing on roads, and another on railways, etc) or it may need to be taken as a whole-class activity.

• Linking back to the flow charts, introduce the local industry on which the class is to focus. This could be connected to transport, agriculture or a local production industry.
• The local study should take the form of an investigation, and should be constructed so as to answer a question or test a hypothesis. Examples of the sorts of questions that could be asked of a locality include:
  • What was it like to work in the lead mine?
  • What effect did enclosing the fields have on the farm workers?
  • What was the importance of the local canal?
  These 'big' questions should be broken down into 'little' questions which themselves contribute to an overall answer. Ways in which the 'big' question can be broken down into 'little' questions will vary according to local conditions and the availability of source material.
• Ask pupils to work in groups, with each group trying to find an answer to one ?little? question, using appropriate source material.
• Ask groups to plan how to present their findings, and ask representatives from each group to meet together in new pupil groups to decide how the overall answer to the ?big? question can be presented.
• Pupils present overall findings as a group display or individual structured writing.

The national picture: what happened?

• Using textbooks where appropriate, put the local study into the national context. While focusing on the particular industry which pupils have studied locally, links can be made with developments in other industries and in transport.
• Lead a whole-class discussion on the similarities and differences between the local and the national picture.

• Explain that many people felt threatened by industrial change, particularly when it seemed to affect their jobs or their income or both. Introduce the protest movements associated with Ned Ludd, Captain Swing and Rebecca.
• Ask pupils to investigate either Ned Ludd, Captain Swing or Rebecca and to ask appropriate questions, such as: What happened? When? Where? Why? Ask pupils to compile, either individually or in groups, a grid to show the outcome of their researches. They discuss similarities and differences.
• Introduce pupils to protest songs - current/contemporary back to examples of Luddite songs. Ask pupils to write a protest song appropriate to the supporters of Ludd, Captain Swing or Rebecca.
• Lead a class discussion on the methods and techniques of protest open to ordinary people. What alternatives to violence were open to them? What was the attitude of the authorities? Why were the sentences passed on the rioters so harsh? Why were the leaders anonymous?
• Use mini-case studies of individuals, eg a Nottinghamshire framework knitter, an Essex labourer, a Pembrokeshire farmer. Ask pupils, in groups, to work out the pros and cons of 'their' individual joining Ludd, Captain Swing or Rebecca. Ask pupils to write down the advice (with reasons) they would give 'their' various individuals. Each group presents their decisions to the class and, after discussion, a consensus is reached.

• Link back with work on protest against changes, and ask whether they were, in the long term, successful. Remind pupils of the local industry they studied and ask them whether protest affected this industry and whether their local study could help to answer the question 'How far was Britain industrialised by 1850?'
• If appropriate, ask pupils to return to their local study and look at the situation in 1850. This may have already been done in part, and will need teasing out and highlighting. A new focus could be given by considering housing, town and street plans, census data and street directories.
• Move to the national scene, and consider a range of images of Britain in 1850. These should include source material (written and pictorial) relating to transport, eg cobbled streets, decline of canals, railways; agriculture, eg enclosed field systems, mechanisation; and production, eg smoking chimneys, factory workers, back-to-back houses, and should include material relating to areas that experienced very little change, eg Fens, rural market towns.
• Ask pupils to brainstorm each area (transport, agriculture and production) and produce their own hypotheses/conclusions from the given material. Individually, or in groups, ask pupils to use textbooks (and the library if appropriate) to confirm, or otherwise, the conclusions/hypotheses they have drawn.
• Ask pupils to group the source material under the three headings on the classroom walls or screens, and underneath present the pupils' conclusions as to how sufficiently these represent transport, agriculture and production in 1850. These could be written as ' At first we decided these sources showed that ... . Then we found out that ...'.
• Ask pupils to undertake a summative activity for each area (transport, agriculture and production) to answer the original question Were the changes here to stay? This could be structured so as to contrast/compare the local and the national: ' Here in Farnhill ... but elsewhere in Britain ... '.