History Department

Suffragettes

“Maudlyn Nwagwu and Olivia Chang from 9 Methodius made this moving video as part of their presentation about the suffragettes – to get the full effect play emotive music in the background like they did when presenting to their class”.

St Ursula’s election analysis

For the 2nd time in four St Ursula’s elections the Labour party won a landslide victory with 70% of the vote. The other parties were very close in the battle for 2nd place with the Green party edging out the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats end up runners up with 11% of the vote.
There were some variations in year group voting with Labour doing well across the board but especially in year 9. The Green’s did very well with the K.S.4 year groups and might have made the election closer if the lower school followed in their footsteps.
The Conservatives had a bad day but polled their best results with year 7 and 11, and the Liberal Democrats did very well with year 9 voters.
The election would not have been possible without the hard work of the History department and especially Mr Britton. Also the History club did a great job putting up posters around the school and organising the voting on the day. They were assisted by Zita in the Polling station and Agatha who carefully counted the votes.

Overall School result 2012
1st – Labour 70% (394 votes)

2nd – The Green party 11% (64 votes)

3rd – Conservatives 10% (59 votes)

4th - Liberal Democrats 9% (49 votes)

Year 7 Castle investigations

Year 7 have been investigating castle life as part of their medieval course and have made some spectacular models and booklets about Castles. Here are some of the best examples.

History Big Question Result

This terms Big Question brought the most comprehensive result yet.

Who should be in charge of changes made to the NHS?

MPs       -          5%

Medics       -          95%

History big question – Autumn term
 

*Should protest camps be allowed in public areas to raise awareness for their campaigns?

Yes: 58% No: 42%

Trip to national army museum

The History department and 30 year 8 students visited the national army museum on Friday the 25th of November. The theme of the day was the English civil war.
They went by train to Charing Cross then walked to St James Palace in order to follow the route of Charles the first on the day of his execution in 1649. The route took us through St James Park and to the Banqueting house, scene of the execution itself. After this we strolled down Whitehall to see Oliver Cromwell’s statue, before getting the tube to Sloane Square.
At the museum and after lunch the girls listened to a talk by one of the Museums experts on the ordinary Soldiers who fought in the war, and Aaze Chikwe and Diana Serenli were both dressed up as 17th century soldiers. This also included a stomach churning rein action of the surgery wounded soldiers might face if they survived a battle.
Lastly the girls got the chance to try on the costumes and handle a 15 foot long pike as well as test their military strategy before we returned to school. Joan of Arc student Bridget Walker said,” it was fun trying on the soldier’s costumes, but the armour was really heavy, it must have been hard for the Soldiers to get around the battlefield”.

Museum of London

On Wednesday November 1st, 29 year 7 pupils visited the Museum of London to find out about Roman London.
After a bit of walking from Cannon Street we arrived and looked around a gallery about London from 450,000 (!) BC – 50BC. Discovering things like there used to be trees where the Thames is now, that there were woolly mammoths and about how humans developed.
This was followed by some drama on Boudicca (Queen of the Iceni), which led to the girls creating some innovative and rousing speeches to prepare their troops for.
We then handled some actual Roman artefacts, some 2,000 years old and tried to work out what they were and then tried on some Roman clothing – look at the pictures to see what you think of the outfits.
The trip ended with a look at the Roman Gallery and pupils finding out more about Roman trade, religion, baths, houses and more.

Year 10 visit the Imperial War museum

The year 10 History option visited the Imperial war museum on Monday the 31st of October. They had the chance to see the museums extensive Nazi Germany collection and explore the life of Werner Lehman a schoolboy who ended up as a Luftwaffe pilot.

Year 7 History story winners!

Thereze Chin from Bakhita won the St Ursula’s Greenwich story competition 2011-12 with her story about World War two.
Melissa Jeremy was second with her diary entry and Jasmine Santarin was third with her story called ‘the women in black’.
All three wrote excellent stories based on St Ursula’s or local History.

History big question?

Should Britain intervene to help remove dictators in other countries?

Results from Years 7-9 were: 46% Yes and 54% No.

Greenwich foreshore trips

In the week of the 4th-8th of July four classes in year 8 have been mud larking on the Greenwich foreshore. They were given a brief History of the site by Naval College expert Jo Hall and an introduction to Archaeology/mud larking. This involved examining previous finds and sorting them chronologically, and in terms of use.
They then got the chance to go on the foreshore and see what they could find. The pictures show some of the classroom and field work they did and some of the artefacts they discovered. Year 8 student Ife Opedo said, “it was really muddy but we enjoyed finding things that had been there for hundreds of years”.
Finds included clay pipes, Medieval and Tudor pottery and a lot of less useful items!

Student Reviews

Archaeological Dig Sarah Olorode

Foreshore trip Dahyana Estrada