Experienced Teacher Programme (ETP)

Immersive online course for experienced history teachers

Spring 2025 Cohort

Start date: Wednesday 26 February, 5.15pm–6.30pm

What is the Experienced Teacher Programme?

This six-week online course is designed to energise your teaching and help you engage with the history education community. In this programme you will access rich, subject-specific professional development designed specifically for experienced teachers: an antidote to one-size-fits-all training. We will explore of some of the biggest questions, the thorniest debates and the most influential books and articles of the past few years.

  • Who is the course for?

    This is a professional learning programme designed specifically for experienced history teachers. We aim to engage colleagues who have been in the classroom for anything between 5 and 40 years, giving them an opportunity to engage with new ideas at the same time as collaborating to share established knowledge and generate new knowledge of their own. It is open to teachers of Key Stages 3, 4 and 5.

  • Why should I take part?

    According to the Department for Education (2016), ‘effective professional development has explicit relevance to participants’ and is designed around ‘individual teachers’ existing experience, knowledge and needs.’

  • What are the learning outcomes?

    This course will enable you to:

    • • Grapple with the latest thinking in history education and pedagogy
    • • Bring your experience to lively discussion of new ideas, asking, ‘Is this really new, or is it just repurposed?’
    • • Draw on a wide range of research and resources to improve your own practice
    • • Be empowered to share your expertise both within your education settings and beyond

  • How is the course structured and delivered?

    The course will take place in six online sessions from February–May 2025. Each session will include a short presentation from the course leaders and discussion in breakout rooms. Live attendance at the online sessions is therefore strongly encouraged in order to make the most of the programme and is required for certification.

    There will be an optional meeting for participants, or anyone interested in joining the programme at the Historical Association Conference in Liverpool on 9–10 May 2025.

    Session 1: The changing face of history teaching
    Wednesday 26 February 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    • • Why the Experienced Teacher Programme?
    • • What’s new in history education today? The course leaders will introduce 9 ‘new’ ideas and how they may land in tomorrow’s history classroom.
    • • ‘New’ or just repurposed? Group discussion to explore which of the 9 ideas are really new to history pedagogy, and what can be gained from engaging with the ‘new’ thinking around them.
    • • What can experienced history teachers offer in the changing world of history education?
    • • Introduction of outcome task for Session 6

     
    Session 2: A curriculum for justice—where next?
    Wednesday 12 March 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    • • Where next for anti-racism, diversification and decolonisation in history education?
    • • Doing justice to climate history
    • • Transformative scholarship, old and new
    • • Worked examples of practical application of decolonisation and climate history in Key Stage 3 and GCSE schemes of work

     
    Session 3: Rediscovering scholarship
    Wednesday 26 March 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    • • What is the latest thinking around historical scholarship?
    • • Discussion of the most influential books of recent years and how they can inspire curriculum evolution
    • • Deconstructing the historian’s craft to support students’ writing
    • • Practical approaches to embracing scholarship in your classroom

     
    Session 4: Changing language
    Wednesday 23 April 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    • • What do we say? What’ s new in the language we use in history teaching and learning?
    • • How do we say it? What’s new in oracy and classroom talk?
    • • Helping students to be both rigorous and exploratory in their use of language
    • • Strategies old and new to draw on to encourage confident, precise, articulate use of language in the history classroom

     
    Session 5: Online worlds in history teaching
    Wednesday 7 May 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    • • How are online resources being used today in the history classroom? A summary of key approaches that exemplify using educational technology (‘edtech’) with a clear pedagogical purpose
    • • New technologies: but do these mean new learning? Discussing the arguments of the techno-pessimists
    • • Practical strategies for drawing on edtech, including AI, to support cognitive science approaches, bring world-building to life, teach independent thinking and critical literacy, and support powerful teacher planning and resourcing

     
    Fringe meeting: HA Conference
    Friday 9 and Saturday 10 May 2025, Liverpool

    There will be an optional meeting for participants, or anyone interested in joining the programme at the Historical Association Conference in Liverpool. 

    Session 6: Networking and presentations
    Wednesday 21 May 2025, 5.15pm–6.30pm

    This final session is an opportunity to explore the benefits of subject networks including the HA, empowering course participants to share their expertise and pedagogy beyond their own school settings. Participants will have the opportunity to present a response to one of the ‘new’ ideas explored in this course and to demonstrate how these have been or will be applied in their own classrooms, or to support and inspire less experienced teachers in their departments.

  • Who are the course leaders?

    The course is led by experienced history teachers Andrew Sweet and Rachel Lewin.

    Andrew Sweet is a Chartered History Teacher (2023), Head of History and Humanities at Millfield Prep School in Somerset. Andrew has been teaching for 20 years and has led the HA South West Network for 3 years. He has presented workshops at national conferences on historical scholarship, local history and teaching history in China, organising network presentations and articles for OneBigHistoryDepartment. He has always been a strong advocate of scholarship, co-founding the History Teacher Book Club (@historybookgrp)

    Rachel Lewin is Deputy Headteacher and History Lead at the Five Islands Academy, and is also Subject Champion for History for the Leading Edge Academies Partnership. Her particular interests are working in partnership with local museums, teaching diverse, global histories in her rural island environment, literacy in history and intelligent interdisciplinarity within curriculum design. She has a Masters in Learning and Teaching and has shared her research and practice through a range of conferences and workshops.

  • What does it cost?

    The course costs £99 for members and £135 for non-members.

    Did you know? It costs only £35 more to become a member and register at the membership rate, with access to a huge range of resources and other benefits all year round. Find out more about Secondary membership. 

  • How do I book?

    To register and access the content you will either need to have an active HA membership or a free basic account. You will need to be logged in to your account before you purchase this course.

    Become a member
    Register for a free basic account

    Please note that payment must be made online by card, and we do not issue VAT invoices for this course. You can request a VAT receipt following payment by emailing events@history.org.uk.

    Register for the Spring 2025 cohort below:

Register Now

(Please see details under 'How do I book?' above)

Please read the terms and conditions before registering.

For any enquiries, please contact Olivia at events@history.org.uk.

“As a teacher of 20+ years, it is easy to feel overlooked or less relevant, whereas these discussions have shown the need for experience in leading teaching and learning. This course has been empowering.”

“My top takeaways include the richness and diversity of history teaching and the professional value of sharing practice and experience. I have taken away inspiration for the next few years of my teaching career - there is much to do!”