Local History Primary CPD

Explore local history and heritage

About this session

Local History Month is coming up in May and this CPD is designed to provide you with everything you need to celebrate your school’s local history. For this session, Historic Royal Palaces have joined up with the team at Historic England plus KS2 Teacher and local history enthusiast Julia Grunill.

This session will include:

What is local history and why is it important?

Using local history as the focus of an enquiry

Get ideas on how to use local history to reinforce chronological understanding, recognise how buildings change over time and examine significance, similarity and difference.

Connecting national history to local history

We will share our free Wren and Raven Investigates resources which introduce children to historic buildings and their features. The series features buildings from different periods and connects buildings and events across the UK.

Using your local area

The team at Historic England will introduce their Street Spotter’s Guide which supports students in searching for interesting local features. Plus, they will reveal top tips on how to build your own heritage trail.

Bringing local history into your teaching

Hear from Julia, a KS2 teacher and local history enthusiast! Find out how Julia brings local history alive in her teaching and get some top tips on how you can do the same, whether in the classroom or on a local history walk.

What to expect

A short introduction and 10 minute presentation from Historic Royal Palaces
A 10 minute presentation from Historic England
A 10 minute presentation from Julia
Q&A
A downloadable resource toolkit to support planning and implementation

National Curriculum links

Chronological understanding
Identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods/note connections, contrasts and trends over time
Understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past/how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources
Significant places in their own locality/a local history study
A study over time tracing how several aspects of national history are reflected in the locality (this can go beyond 1066)
A study of an aspect of history or a site dating from a period beyond 1066 that is significant in the locality.