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It was in the 1952 syllabus that the Social Studies subject was created with the inclusion of
History beginning in grade three with the topic Stories from History. Emphasising the
importance of narrative in teaching students, and the interest in linking cross-curricula
content, the teaching of history is described in the syllabus notes as:
These stories are intended to serve as an introduction to the study of history in the
later grades. The characters should be selected from the history of the world in order
to give the pupil a broad view, and, as far as possible, to correlate with the work in
geography in this grade.
The list of characters is merely suggestive. Other characters might be
substituted at the discretion of the teacher.
Biographical details need not be laboured.
The teacher will make his own selection.
The following are suggested:-William Tell, Bruce, Joan of Arc, Florence
Nightingale, Grace Darling, Livingstone, Captain Scott, Hinkler, Kingsford Smith,
Confucius, Hiawatha, Pocahontas, Horatius, Corporal French V.C., Sir Philip Sidney,
Gregory and the Slave Children, Caxton and the Printing Press. (Department of
Public Instruction, 1952, p. 6)
Explaining the reason for moving towards multi-disciplinary Social Studies, rather than take
a discipline-specific subject approach, the syllabus states:
The appearance of “ Social Studies ” in curricula is indicative of two interdependent
tendencies in the educational practices of our time. One of them is the tendency to
relate matter to be taught to the actual experiences of children and to prepare the
child for the life of the man through participation in activities of the type he is likely
to meet during his life-time ; the other is the tendency to depart from rigid,
convenient but artificial “ subject ” approach in formal education. Conceptions of
what constitute “ Social Studies ” vary according to how much of the total
curriculum is unified. This course of Social Studies has been planned to bring about a
systematic correlation in Civics, Geography, and History.
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