VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
Past meets present: how the latest technology is bringing history to life
Tell us about your school
Sacred Heart School is located in Camberwell, South London. We are a mixed Catholic school which has recently been rated outstanding by Ofsted. Along with fantastic exam results and further education destinations for our students, our main focus is creating well-rounded and responsible members of society who will continue to represent our school community long after leaving Sacred Heart.
How has Holocaust education been taught in the past at your school?
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n our View from the Classroom feature, this month we hear from Richard Price, History Teacher at Sacred Heart Catholic School in London. Here, he discusses the new educational programme being used to teach his GCSE history students about the Holocaust - the only historical event compulsory in the history curriculum.
Following on from the 1991 campaign by the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Holocaust is the only historical event that is compulsory for schools to teach as part of the curriculum. As a History teacher and while teaching the Holocaust, students have often been most excited about opportunities where they are able to interact with Holocaust survivors, asking them in depth and personal questions that I am not in a position to answer. Over the years, our school has welcomed many survivors to come and share their experiences. In our classrooms the teaching of the Holocaust is done through teacher-led activities and PowerPoints while also using resources provided by the Holocaust Educational Trust. This is often accompanied by a visit from a Holocaust survivor who will speak and share their testimony with our Year 9 cohort.
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www.education-today.co.uk
What was it like to be one of the first schools to use the Testimony 360 programme? It was incredible - many say that the best history teachers are the ones who bring the history they teach to life. Sometimes, I dream of creating a real-world version of ‘A Night at the Museum’, bringing my students face to face with history. With the launch of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s groundbreaking Testimony 360: People and Places of the Holocaust programme, this is no longer just a dream. Through the use of interactive testimony and virtual reality, the story of Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg BEM will be accessed by students all over the country and will be with us for generations to come.
How does the programme work? The programme allows students to take their learning in any direction that they wish, not just directed by a teacher at the front of the classroom. Testimony 360 works in two parts, firstly students are able to speak with Manfred using an online interactive platform. They are able to ask him any questions that they like, including those they might have been afraid to ask the real-life Manfred, and hear his response. Students ask questions about all aspects of Manfred’s experience, from his early life, his education, to his life after the war.
The second part of Testimony 360 encompasses the use of virtual reality headsets.
July/August 2024
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