This Issue's Problem: Rafe Sadler has just started his second teaching placement and is worried about the very different ways of working and expectations of teachers in his new department.

In his first school, where history was taught within a humanities programme, the Key Stage 3 scheme of work had included detailed lesson plans, essentially  intended to support the geography and RE specialists teaching outside their own subject. While Rafe was encouraged to develop his own ideas, adapting the suggested activities or designing his own resources, he tended to become very reliant on the prescribed scheme. The fact that the school set common assessment tasks each term made him anxious about exactly what needed to be ‘covered' and which particular concepts he addressed. So, even when he felt confident enough to devise his own activities he still tended to direct them towards the pre-determined lesson objectives.