Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

What’s the hardest part of history? Heads of Year 9 at options time seem depressingly clear - ‘Don’t do history, there’s too much writing.’ David Hellier and Helen Richards show that at The Green School it is reading that used to be the problem. At every level students found it difficult to assimilate, transform and use information by reading it. The problem was most obvious at post-16 level, where spoon-feeding information is simply impossible. Hellier and Richards have found a solution involving changes not merely to their teaching of GCSE and AS/A2 courses, but to their practice across the school. They recommend a range of strategies designed to promote guided, purposeful reading. They show us how they have built up a culture of reading within their department. They demonstrate that their students do not merely read for reading’s sake: they read for understanding.