Yr4 history lessons

[breaktime]

DS is in Y4 - he has history, geography and RE with the same teacher (prep school). DS tells me that the lessons consist of the teacher writing things on the board and he has to copy them down. Now DS loves history - he has read lots of history books including HE Marshall's Our Island Story and Gombrich's Little history of the World and normally I'd expect him to love history and geography. But he hates these lessons as they don't allow him to do his own thing (teacher has told him not to think but do what he tells him to do - apparently). So far I've told him that this is a bit like a university lecture and it's good practice to learn to write fast (he is very slow at writing and has been kept back when he hasn't finished copying stuff which adds to his pain). We're new to the school - what should I do? Is this at all normal for a prep school or just sloppy teaching?

Sloppy teaching breaktime. Chalk and talk is not the way to teach children of his age. Shocking.

Complain. That kind of teaching is utterly out of date (I teach at uni and I haven't done 'chalk and talk' without film or image support, or student interaction, for years) and it is totally inappropriate for the age group. How old is that teacher, by the way? He may not have a PGCE, being at an independent school, so he may need training. DD1 is at a prep school and the history teaching is great - they use internet resources, produce their own 'newpaper front pages', have art classes that are directly linked to the history, so e.g. wwhen it was the Romans, they made mosaics and looked at googled images of Roman mosaics. This generation are 'Horrible Histories' mad, so you can do a lot at home to liven up the learning (TV, books) - but why should you have to?

That sounds like a lesson in copying, and dh (history lecturer) would be appalled to think that's how his classes were perceived! I'd complain. History is all about critical thinking, no matter what age you do it.

Mm all my history lectures were like this (and economics, and maths....) but then I did my degree 25 years ago!

However I thought it just sounded weird for this age group. I'm going to a parents evening this week, I'm not sure whether to take it up directly with the teacher first or tackle the form oo-ordinator. DS does genuinely love history so I don't we have a problem with interest, but he will start misbehaving in these classes if they are too dull.

I confess to occasionally doing chalk and talk at university (where the students are supposed to do several hours of their own research/film watching/factfinding to every hour that I talk), but absolutely not on for a junior school pupil who is supposed to get the best part of his schooling -including the interesting bits- catered for in the school.

Wow, that sounds awful. DD's school doesn't teach 'history' as such (new Welsh KS2 curriculum is mainly theme based for subjects apart from language & maths).

But of course they do study it - atm they are studying the Victorian period as part of their theme of the moment- they've visited a Victorian 'posh house' (dd's description), talked about servants, what schools were like in Victorian times etc etc.

(Mind you this is state school, so not the same thing, I guess.)

Why are you paying for it? It seems pointless-I would go in and say so.

Perhaps this teacher feels strongly about 'dumbing down' and needs some persuasion to cater for the needs of younger children? or maybe s/he feels insecure about teachnig three humanities subjects and wants it to be a series of hard facts? Some teasing out might help to open up possibilities for livelier teaching.