Non-Specialists

Non-specialists may only have a rudimentary understanding of the discipline of history and the way it is taught in schools. They are also unlikely to know what resources re available to help them plan and deliver their history lessons. They are likely to need significant support to ensure that students receive the quality of history education to which they are entitled. Subject leaders will need to meet with the non-history specialist colleague to discuss strengths and weaknesses in relation to their teaching and then make a plan to support the colleague for as long as is necessary.  In this section you will find helpful articles, guides and resources to enable you to colleagues who are not specialist history teachers.

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  • Cunning Plan 155: interpreting WW1 events

    Article

    Enquiry Question: What's worth knowing about the First World War? At the end of our scheme of work on the First World War, I asked myself how I might encourage my Year 9 pupils to reflect on the historical significance of the events we had studied. I was particularly interested...

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  • Getting medieval (and global) at Key Stage 3

    Article

    Taking new historical research into the classroom: getting medieval (and global) at Key Stage 3 Although history teachers frequently work with academic historical writing, direct face-to-face encounters with academic historians are rare in secondary history classrooms. This article reports a collaboration between an academic historian and a history teacher that...

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  • Knowing what counts in history: historical understanding and the non-specialist teacher

    Article

    If science graduates think that history teaching is not about questioning, that there is only ‘one answer' in history or that historical facts are unproblematic, does it matter? Should we care? Doug Newton and Lynn Newton argue that it matters very much for the teaching of history. Their article focusses...

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  • Move Me On 147: Making Analogies Meaningful

    Article

    This issue's problem: Emma Norman finds the analogies that she's using to make historical ideas meaningful end up distracting or confusing the students. Emma has come into history teaching after a number of years at home looking after children. Her previous work was as a fundraiser for an environmental campaign group,...

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