After gaining Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), beginning history teachers in England work a two-year full-time equivalent period of statutory induction. In this early career period they need subject-specific mentoring and support to continue their development as history teachers.

Colleagues who are teacher educators (whether as coordinators and leaders of the history part of ITE/early career, or as school-based mentors working with beginning teacher colleagues) find themselves in varied situations. Some routes into teaching provide many days of specialist history teacher education and the nature of the course is driven by the distinct nature of history as a subject. Some routes provide less focus on the subject and the overall shape of the course may not start from subject specific thinking. This section of the website has been structured to take account of that variety of provision and to accommodate the fact that some colleagues have a lot of time to focus on history in their training year and others do not. Likewise, it is expected that there will be variety in the amount of subject specialist provision available to teachers in their first two years in post as part of their Early Career Programme. The materials in this section can be used in a variety of ways to support subject specific continuing professional development.

This beginning teacher part of the website draws upon many HA resources. History teachers’ knowledge is cumulative not hierarchical and, as a result, history teachers at all stages of their career may use the same material. While the material may be the same, or similar, they will view it in different ways, bring greater depth of understanding, ask different questions and make more connections in the light of their greater experience.