Initial Teacher Trainers

The original History Initial Teacher Trainer materials (HITT) were written some years ago to support all history educators working with beginning teachers. This included school-based mentors and university-based tutors engaged in initial teacher education. The project was funded by the Teacher Development Agency (a body which no longer exists), which made it possible to draw widely on research and on the experience of history teacher educators working in different contexts. While some of the materials are now quite dated (in that they refer to previous versions of the National Curriculum, for example), the essential advice that they offer about what history teachers need to learn and about how that learning can be effectively structured and organised, as well as the research insights that they provide into the processes of adult learning, remain highly relevant.  Many of the units may be particularly useful for those in school who are taking on new roles in teacher education, perhaps moving beyond mentoring to planning and structuring the whole school-based curriculum that history trainees are now following.

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  • Film: Teaching history for beginners... Becoming a reflective practitioner

    Article

    Welcome to our filmed webinar series Teaching History For Beginners. This series is designed to support beginning history teachers and can be used by mentors or SCITTs with new history teachers in training or by beginning teachers eager to get ahead. Each webinar, presented by experienced history ITE tutors, lecturers and mentors...

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  • Film: The use of educational talk in history learning and teaching

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series. In this episode, David Ingledew, senior lecturer in history education and ITE lead at the University of Hertfordshire explores education talk as a follow up from his earlier film on questioning in the history classroom.

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  • Film: Lesson sequences

    Article

    In this latest film in the teaching history for beginners series, Helen Snelson from the University of York explores and unpacks the principles and process of planning across a sequence of lessons to provide a coherent unit of work that builds knowledge and progression in disciplinary thinking. 

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  • Film: Historians and the past

    Article

    In this film, Professor Arthur Chapman, gives a short introduction to how historians approach the past. He clearly explains the naive thinking that children can have about the work of a professional historian and models how to explain the relationship between history and the past in the classroom. This film was...

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  • Film: Formative Assessment

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.  Sally Thorne has been a History teacher since 2003 and is currently Head of History at a secondary school in Bristol. She is also a GCSE examiner, textbook author, conference speaker and SHP adviser. In this short film, Sally unpacks formative assessment.

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  • Film: Building Subject Knowledge Quickly

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.  As a teacher, you may be teaching topics that you have never studied before. In this episode of the Beginning Teacher webinar series, Laura London, Lecturer in Education on the history PGCE at the University of East Anglia gives advice on...

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  • Film: Questioning in the History Classroom Part A

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.  In this short filmed webinar, David Ingledew, senior lecturer in history education and ITE lead at the University of Hertfordshire sets out the scholarship, principles and context of questioning in the history classroom. This will be followed by a short film...

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  • Film: An Introduction to Lesson Planning (Parts 6-10)

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series. In this two-part film, Rachel Foster (teaching associate and secondary PGCE lead at the university of Cambridge) explores the key principles and processes of lesson planning for new teachers. View the first part here. This series is designed to support beginning...

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  • Film: An Introduction to Lesson Planning (Parts 1-5)

    Article

    This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series. In this two part film, Rachel Foster (teaching associate and secondary PGCE lead at the university of Cambridge) explores the key principles and processes of lesson planning for new teachers. View the second part here. This series is designed to support beginning history...

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  • Film: Teaching history for beginners... Disciplinary concepts

    Article

    Welcome to our filmed webinar series Teaching History For Beginners. This series is designed to support beginning history teachers and can be used by mentors or SCITTs with new history teachers in training or by beginning teachers eager to get ahead. Each webinar, presented by experienced history ITE tutors, lecturers and...

    Click to view
  • Right up my street: the knowledge needed to plan a local history enquiry

    Article

    Inspired by the claim that local history can be taught effectively ‘Any time, any place, anywhere’, Katharine Burn and Jason Todd took up the challenge of planning Key Stage 3 enquiries related to an unusual and diverse, but frequently neglected and often despised, corner of Oxford. They sought not merely...

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  • ‘If you had told me before that these students were Russians, I would not have believed it’

    Article

    Bjorn Wansink and his co-authors have aligned their teaching of a recent and controversial historical issue – the Cold War – in the light of a contemporary incident. This article demonstrates a means of ensuring that students understand that different cultures’ views of their shared past are nuanced, rather than monolithic – a different concept in philosophy as well as in...

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  • Move Me On 166: getting the right pitch for GCSE teaching

    Article

    This feature is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. This issue’s problem: Bob Williams is struggling to get the pitch right in teaching topics at GCSE that the school previously taught to Year 7. Bob Williams, now half way through his training year, is feeling very out...

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  • Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training 2014

    Article

    An independent review of the quality and effectiveness of ITT courses, to be led by Andrew Carter was announced in May 2014 by the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. The review, which closed on September 22nd 2014, looked across the full range of ITT courses and sought views...

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  • A history trainee early in their teaching placement

    Multipage Article

    This film series was produced to accompany materials in the Beginning Teacher units. It contains a Key Stage 3 history lesson and lesson debrief. The materials are not designed specifically to be examples of good practice; rather they are to promote discussion about good practice in teacher training. The films show a lesson taught...

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  • A history trainee nearing the end of their main teaching placement

    Multipage Article

    This film has been produced to accompany materials in the History Initial Teacher Training units. It contains a Key Stage 3 history lesson and lesson debrief. The materials are not designed specifically to be examples of good practice; rather they are to promote discussion about good practice in teacher training....

    Click to view
  • Film: Trainee and mentor review a lesson and discuss the trainee's progress

    Multipage Article

    This film series was produced to accompany materials in the Beginning Teacher units. It contains a Key Stage 3 history lesson debrief. The materials are not designed specifically to be examples of good practice; rather they are to promote discussion about good practice in teacher training. The films show a meeting between...

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  • Suffrage, feudal, democracy, treaty... history's building blocks: learning to teach historical concepts

    Article

    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...

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