In the UK, thoughtful history teachers have long lamented the fact that the majority of pupils emerge from their compulsory history schooling at 14 with a limited or inadequate understanding of those key historical concepts that are necessary to make sense of the world in adult life. Whilst more able pupils seem to pick things up quite well through the traditional array of teaching methods, we all know that, worryingly, the majority remain too ignorant or too unsophisticated in their understandings to participate fully as active, independent, critical citizens in a democracy. Much recent practice in the last ten years or so has begun to address this. In the UK a body of practice and professional literature now exists on ways of helping pupils to link, arrange, classify, use labels, create new headings and play with shifting categories (such as approaches to ‘thinking skills' that emphasise classification, to analytical writing in history or to ‘word level' work in the National Literacy Strategy). Yet three key areas remain undeveloped, or at the very least, not widely discussed by UK teachers. These are, first, the processes by which trainee teachers come to realise the massive gap between their own conceptual vocabulary and that of their very different pupils; second, ways of classifying historical concepts for the purposes of teaching; and, third, fresh ways of developing and assessing ‘deep' understanding in pupils - the kind of understanding that will last and that will help to anchor new knowledge. Jacques Haenen and Hubert Schrijnemakers address each of these areas in a fascinating analysis of current practice of initial teacher education in the  Netherlands. This article will be of particular interest to mentors, trainers and managers of trainee teachers or newly qualified teachers; to heads of department developing their thinking about the role of concepts and knowledge in their progression policies; and to Advanced Skills Teachers looking for new ways of developing others' pedagogical thinking in order to improve performance.