Summer course for primary school teachers
Hands-on History: Summer course for primary school teachers
This summer we invite primary school teachers to join us for a five day Department of Education and EPV-approved summer course.
During this course, you will take part in tours, workshops and activities at various venues in Dublin, gaining new knowledge and skills for delivering the history part of the SESE curriculum.
You will be empowered to do your own local history research, and will gain new ideas for hands-on activities to enhance history learning.
You’ll also find out about the buildings and programmes managed by Dublin City Council Culture Company that you can avail of through school trips, online resources, classroom visits and more. These include 14 Henrietta Street, Richmond Barracks, Goldenbridge Cemetery, and the Historians in Residence programme.
You will experience tours and activities that were developed with and for children. They have all been co-created with children and teachers through collaborative, inclusive processes. Throughout the course, there will be a focus on reflection, and you will be encouraged to share your own experiences of teaching history. The course content will be particularly relevant to Dublin-based primary school teachers, but all primary teachers are welcome.
This is a five day Department of Education and EPV-approved summer course for primary school teachers. One ticket covers the full five-day course. Participants must attend all five days in order to be eligible for EPV days. It is a face-to-face course which will take place across several venues in Dublin, as below. Each day includes a one hour lunch break.
Course schedule
Monday 28 July, 10.00 am to 3.00 pm.
Location: 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1, D01 HH34
We will be based in the 14 Henrietta Street museum for the day. Participants will be introduced to the work of Dublin City Council Culture Company, which runs cultural initiatives and buildings across the city with, and for, the people of Dublin.
We will go on a guided tour of 14 Henrietta Street, learning about Dublin life from the house’s Georgian beginnings in the 18th century to tenement times in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will then explore the museum’s teacher resources and complete some of the tasks in them.
Tuesday 29 July, 10.00 am to 3.00 pm.
Location: Richmond Barracks, Dublin 8, D08 YY05
The course will be based in Richmond Barracks for the day. The Barracks was built in the 19th century as a British army barracks and it is home to Culture Connects, a programme of cultural activities.
We will explore the Richmond Barracks timeline on display, which covers the building and area’s history from the late 18th century to modern times, and take part in activities relating to timelines, as well as Richmond Barracks’s role in the Easter Rising. We will go on a guided tour of the adjacent Goldenbridge Cemetery, built in the 19th century as Ireland’s first garden cemetery.
Wednesday 30 July, 10.00 am to 3.00 pm.
Location: Richmond Barracks, Dublin 8, D08 YY05
We will be based in Richmond Barracks again on this day. Participants will be introduced to the Dublin City Historian in Residence for Children programme, which provides space, opportunities and resources for children to uncover the stories of the places where they live.
We will discuss examples of collaborative history projects on this programme and take part in some interactive history workshops. We will also meet some of the other Dublin City Historians in Residence, who work with all ages, and explore their history publication ‘History on your Doorstep’.
Thursday 31 July, 10.00 am to 3.00 pm
Central Library, Dublin 1, D01 E9V3 and a city centre walk
The first half of this day will be spent in Central Library, a public library in the city centre, where participants will gain some ideas about how to research the history of their school’s local area. You will have time to try out some of this research using the library resources.
The second half of the day will be spent following the Hidden Histories Hunt, a history treasure hunt through the city centre. This is a 3km guided walk. The day will finish at the end of this walk at Kevin Street Library, Dublin 8, D08 EY79.
Friday 1 August, 10.00 am to 3.00 pm
|Richmond Barracks, Dublin 8, D08 YY05
We will be based in Richmond Barracks again for the final day of the course, where we will take part in a variety of short interactive history workshops that can be adapted or reproduced in the classroom for different historical topics and different levels of learning.
Learning outcomes:
- You will gain an awareness of the buildings and programmes of Dublin City Council Culture Company that you can avail of. This includes places to visit on school trips, such as 14 Henrietta Street, Richmond Barracks and Goldenbridge Cemetery. It also includes other resources such as the Historian in Residence for Children programme of history workshops in schools, as well as the online teacher resources for 14 Henrietta Street.
- You will be empowered to do your own research on your school’s local area, linking to the strong focus on local history in the curriculum. You will learn about free resources that can be used to explore local history and different types of activities that can be used to teach it.
- You will gain new ideas for hands-on activities to enhance history learning. These include activities based around games, craft, groupwork, and more. They can be adapted or reproduced for different topics and different levels.
The course will be particularly useful for the Working as a Historian and Local Studies parts of the curriculum, as well as other strands relating to the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
Course tutor:
The course will be delivered by Dervilia Roche, Education Manager and Historian in Residence for Children at Dublin City Council Culture Company. She has been working in heritage and public history for over eighteen years, focussing specifically on children’s history activities for the last four years.