St Paul’s offers new workshop to support OCR History GCSE students
St Paul’s offers new workshop to support OCR History GCSE students
Our Head of Learning, Charlie Rowbotham, shared:
“St Paul’s Cathedral has been based at the heart of the City of London for 1400 years and is an ideal location to discover more about the history of this capital city. From the Romans, through Viking invasion, the location of the beginning of national news, through to the Great Fire of London, St Paul’s has links to it all.
“Five cathedrals have been on the same site throughout the last 14 centuries, all with amazing stories and artifacts, which we would love to share with students. The ability to touch on all aspects of the history of Britain in this one location makes it an ideal choice for OCR’s History Around Us.”
The new ‘History Around Us’ workshop aims to inspire and engage students with their local history at a site of significance to Londoners and the wider nation, while also enriching and consolidating the skills and knowledge they need for their GCSE exam.
Diving into the history of St Paul’s to discover what it can tell us about the lives and attitudes of people across different periods, the workshop covers much of the required content for the OCR site study module.
These key moments in history include the Great Fire of London, the 18th and 19th century addition of monuments to the Cathedral floor and their links to the British Empire, and the role of St Paul’s and the Watch during the Second World War. Students also explore more recent events, such as Dr Martin Luther King’s sermon in 1964, and the 2018 consecration of Dame Sarah Mullally as the first female Bishop of London.
Learning about these events is enriched by activities and memorable experiences. These range from lying beneath the iconic Dome, to studying a 17th century map to understand why the Cathedral is located at Ludgate Hill, or exploring replica incendiary devices to bring to life the threat the Cathedral faced during the Blitz.
Nuala Long, Head of History at The Perse School, Cambridge, shared why the school chose St Paul’s as their site study, and how they’ve benefited from the workshop:
“We settled on St. Paul’s Cathedral as it represented a line of continuous history from the Anglo Saxons to the present day, and as a site centred on religious worship, we felt that this was a story that can perhaps be neglected in schools. At the same time, the Cathedral shows the interconnected nature of England’s relationship with the rest of the world and the way that this has changed. It is also, frankly, just an iconic building!
“The site visit is a hugely important part of our teaching and makes it much easier to show students how the fabric of this building tells us as much as some written sources. Students being able to lie on the Cathedral floor and look up at the Dome teaches them more than an image in a classroom. The Learning team at the Cathedral are a fantastic resource for us to use.”
If you’re interested in taking part in the ‘History Around Us’ workshop with your school, please email learning@stpaulscathedral.org.uk or call on 020 7246 8353.
The Learning team also offers other workshops for secondary schools, including ‘History Set in Stone: Church, power and empire’, which explores how the monuments at the Cathedral can inform understanding of the British Empire and its influence and impact on the wider world, and ‘The Big Issues’, where students explore Religious Studies content around the Cathedral followed by an open Q&A discussion with an ordained member of the Church of England.
For more information and to book, click here.
