A lesson on the Vikings in a small Leicestershire primary school.

In a class for seven and eight year-olds, the teacher had introduced them to the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred. Alfred was the first to defeat the Viking invaders and settlers and persuade them to become Christian if they wished to live in England. He is a very important historical figure and the school curriculum includes the Viking period as one of those to be studied under the heading Invaders and Settlers.

This teacher had chosen the Viking period and the lesson was the final one, the evaluation, when she wanted to be sure how much they had learned and how well they had learned it. She had done the previous lessons largely on an individual basis, teaching them a lot and then asking them to collect information individually.

For this final lesson she decided to set the tasks for small groups and chose the members of each group herself, because she knew them and knew their strengths and weaknesses. She had prepared ten statements about King Alfred, writing them on cards in large handwriting. She had worked hard. Each of six groups needed ten cards, sixty cards in all.

The groups then had to decide which were true and which were false. This is very good history teaching. It involved those brain processes central to subjects like history…..analysis, comparison and interpretation of evidence and drawing relevant conclusions. The first question in history is "Can I believe the evidence?"

The pupils discussed these statements very fully and were clearly interested in the work. They argued sometimes with each other, when one disagreed with another. The interaction was strong and positive. Each group had a leader, chosen by the teacher for his or her leadership qualities, and who had to make sure a group decision was agreed. Any differences must be reconciled.

Each group had made the right decisions. All the true statements had been agreed and all the rest were false. However, the leader of one group reported that they had reached the same decision on nine statements but on one they had managed only a 3 to 1 majority. The problem statement was “King Alfred built Winchester Cathedral.” The teacher asked who had disagreed with the majority on this statement and she identified herself, the leader. However, she had respected the democratic principle and reported the group’s vote. This statement was one of the really well-known facts about Alfred and the teacher and I looked at each other wondering how such an almost certain statement had made her doubt. We asked her and she told us:

"He couldn’t have done it…… all by himself!"

The quality of the situation was impressive. A seven-year old girl, working within the dynamic interaction of a small group, had looked at the quality of evidence. She had to judge each statement true or false. As written, and that was the evidence she faced, that statement could not be true. Alfred had done none of the work. She argued her case, accepted she was outvoted, reported democratically but held her opinion. It was a high-quality moment in the class lesson and absolutely what good history teaching aims for. The teacher had done well too. She had prepared good resources, and by using small groups, brought deeper levels of understanding. The evaluation ensured that the one different view was also expressed and maybe the rest of the children began to see the lesson her way as they went off to lunch.