Our Place: a local history inquiry

 

Did you know that our school is 125 years old this year? (We may have mentioned it once or twice as we’re very proud of this fact!) This week, Autahi embarked on a mini inquiry to discover more about ‘Our Place’. This is as local as local history gets as we’re focussing on the place where our school now stands. How has it changed over time? Who was here before us? What was on this land before our school?

There is plenty to dig into and it's not hard to be engaged by a topic that is so close to home. But, learning about our place here up above Worser Bay gives us important insights into some bigger themes in our country's history. Where our school now stands, there has been an important Pā site and a farm. Whātonga, Tara (who gives his name to Te Whanganui-a-Tara - Wellington Harbour) and the legendary voyager Kupe sailed their waka in the waters around our school. 

You may be aware of the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum. In working on this inquiry, we are engaging with this rich resource. The curriculum is structured in layers. Children children return to the same broad topics as they progress through primary school, building extra layers of knowledge and nuanced understanding over time, as is appropriate to their age and stage.

Knowledge and skills are structured into three interwoven strands:

For this inquiry, we are drawing particularly on these key understandings:

UNDERSTAND

Māori have been settling, storying, shaping, and have been shaped by these lands and waters for centuries. 

The settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand has contributed to an increasingly diverse population, with many languages and cultures now part of its fabric. 

Individuals, groups, and organisations have exerted and contested power in ways that improve the lives of people and communities, and in ways that lead to exclusion, injustice, and conflict.

KNOW 

The ways different groups of people have lived and worked in this rohe have changed over time.

DO 

I can use historical sources, giving deliberate attention to mātauranga Māori sources, to help answer my questions about the past. 

(Here, we'll begin the process of introducing our learners to the idea of evidence and the beginnings of critical thinking. How do we know what we know? What forms can evidence take? Who made it and why? And - more sophisticated - is the evidence telling us the whole story? Can we tell this story in different ways?)

Working with the stories of 'Our Place' here at Worser Bay gives us an opportunity to introduce these big ideas in a context that will be meaningful to our young learners.

The new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum can be found at here and is well worth a look.

Our Inquiry has just begun. Getting a grip on history is tricky so we started by creating a collaborative timeline to explore what we know already about things that have happened in the past.

Based on these ideas, we also had a go at ordering some images from oldest to newest - for example, a waka, a camel, a dinosaur, a TV, a car. The discussion here is really important and helps to clarify and shape our thinking.

There is more exploring and learning to come and we'll be adding to our Blog as we go.