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Year 4 · How do we know? Sources and your own place

Your own local history study

A local history study

25 minutes4 checks6 exit questionsNational curriculum objective

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

A local history study

Key learning points

  • • Start with one question
  • • Four kinds of local evidence
  • • Walking the evidence
  • • Presenting your findings

This lesson at a glance

  • 25 minutes
  • 20 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • No marked quiz yet
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

historyquestionevidencewalkingpresenting

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 20 · Intro5%
1

Introduction

Part 1 of 20

Your own local history study illustrationArchive-led lesson

Historical enquiry

Your own local history study

The past is not only in books about kings. It is in your street: in the buildings, the names, the maps and the people who remember.

In a nutshell

A local history study

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 20

Before we start

What you already know

You can ask a historical question and read a source with its provenance.

Recap: y4-history-6Recap: y4-history-7
3

Key words

Part 3 of 20

Key words

Words you'll need today

local history
The story of one small place, studied closely.
oral history
Evidence from talking to people about what they remember.
archive
A place that keeps old records safe.
enquiry
A question you investigate using evidence.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 20

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Choosing your enquiry

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 20

Learn

Start with one question

Pick something small and answerable: how has our high street changed in fifty years? Why is our road called what it is called? Who lived in this house in 1911? A narrow question you can finish beats a giant one you cannot.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 20

Learn

Four kinds of local evidence

Maps from different years show what was built and what went. Census records list who lived where. Photographs show shopfronts, clothes and traffic. And people remember — grandparents are primary sources you can actually ask questions.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 20

Quick check

Which is the best local enquiry question?

8

Quick check

Part 8 of 20

Quick check

Oral history means evidence from...

9

Reset break

Part 9 of 20

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 20

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Gathering the evidence

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 20

Learn

Walking the evidence

Buildings are sources you can visit. Look up above the shop signs: dates carved in stone, bricked-up windows, old painted advertisements, different brick where an extension was added. Sketch or photograph what you notice and label it.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 20

Learn

Presenting your findings

Put your answer in one sentence, then a timeline of your place, then two or three sources with a line each on what they showed. Finish by saying what you could not find out and where you would look next.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 20

Quick check

Comparing maps from different years shows...

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 20

Quick check

Why check a memory against a record?

15

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 20

Evidence 1 of 1

map

Historic Ordnance Survey maps of your area

Ordnance Survey surveyors, 1840s onwards

The same streets surveyed again and again over more than a century, showing fields becoming houses, railways arriving, and factories appearing and going.

Because the same organisation mapped the same ground repeatedly to a consistent standard, the maps can be laid side by side and compared fairly.

Think like a historian

Compare two maps of your street fifty years apart. What is new, what has gone, and what has not moved at all?

Source: Ordnance Survey; local archive and library map collections

View the archive record ↗
16

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 20

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Choosing a question too big to finish, like 'the whole history of my town'.
  • Believing one memory proves something. Memories mix dates up, so check against a map or record.
  • Forgetting to say where each piece of evidence came from.
17

Challenge round

Part 17 of 20

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

18

Challenge round

Part 18 of 20

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

A narrow ____ you can finish beats a giant one you cannot.

19

Mastery quiz

Part 19 of 20

No quiz for this one

This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.

20

Lesson round-up

Part 20 of 20

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Source

A factory inspector's notebook, 1842

"I visited the mill at seven in the morning. The machines were already running. I counted fourteen children at the frames, the youngest no more than nine years of age. The overseer told me they work from six until seven, with forty minutes for dinner."

"The air is thick with cotton dust and the windows are kept shut so the thread does not break. Two of the children showed me hands cut by the shuttles. The owner assured me that the work is light and that the families beg him for the places, since without the children's wages the rent cannot be paid."

"I have written to the magistrates. I doubt much will follow from it."

Original source-style text written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Who wrote this, when, and why might that make it useful to a historian?
  2. What does the source tell you about children's work — and what does it not tell you?
  3. How far does this source show that mill owners were to blame? Answer with a judgement and evidence.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Historic Ordnance Survey maps of your area

map

Ordnance Survey surveyors, 1840s onwards

The same streets surveyed again and again over more than a century, showing fields becoming houses, railways arriving, and factories appearing and going.

Because the same organisation mapped the same ground repeatedly to a consistent standard, the maps can be laid side by side and compared fairly.

Source: Ordnance Survey; local archive and library map collections

View the original record ↗

  • Source work

    Reading

    Read the source closely. Write who made it, when, and what it tells you — then what it does not tell you.

    2 paragraphs

  • Essay answer

    Writing

    Answer the enquiry question with a clear judgement. Use two pieces of evidence and finish with a sentence that weighs them up.

    300–400 words

  • Timeline

    Diagram

    Draw a timeline of the events in this lesson with dates, then photograph it.

    6–8 events

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 20 · Introduction

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