History Teacher Development Programme
Spring 2025 cohort
The History Teacher Development Programme is an online course aimed at history teachers who want to re-focus their attention on teaching ambitious and rigorous history.
- Are you a relatively new teacher coming to the end of your ECT years?
- Are you a more experienced teacher who wants to re-engage with the most up-to-date ideas in History teaching?
- Are you a teacher of another subject with responsibility for teaching history lessons?
- Are you returning from maternity leave or a career break?
- Are you mentoring beginner teachers?
If so, then this course may be just what you need!
Led by a team of seven mentors, the programme is built around webinars and readings that will take you through six modules:
- The aims and challenges of being a history teacher
- Building pupils’ knowledge
- Progression in history
- Teaching the medieval world
- Teaching the British Empire
- Driving your own professional development
A portfolio of self-directed tasks, which you will complete across eight weeks, will enable you to tie everything you learn to your own classroom. You will also be able to discuss your ideas with mentors and like-minded teachers.
By hearing from a range of experts and by making new connections across the country, you will be able to tap into the joy and wisdom that the history teaching community can offer. Most importantly, this course is designed to empower you to take an active role in this community yourself, and to re-discover the excitement of getting better at teaching history.
Online meeting dates
- Thursday 13 March, 4pm-5pm
- Thursday 24 April, 4pm-5pm
- Thursday 3 July, 4pm-5pm
This resource is available to purchase
Non-member instant-access price: £208.00
HA Members can get instant access for £135.00
Limited access: 66 available to purchase
Module 1: What does it mean to be a history teacher?
- Introduction
- Conversation: What is history teaching?
- A short history of history teaching in England
- Why History? Part 1
- Why history? Part 2
- Mentor reflection
- Participants' response tasks
- Suggested reading and listening
Module 2: Building historical knowledge
- Introduction
- Conversation: What does it mean to ‘know’ history?
- How does existing knowledge shape new learning in history?
- Knowledge and historical thinking
- How do students acquire knowledge in history?
- How can stories build and shape students’ knowledge of the past?
- Mentor reflection
- Participants' response tasks
Module 3: Getting better at history
- Introduction
- Conversation: What does it mean to get better at history?
- Teaching rigorous and meaningful history at KS4
- Developing students' historical thinking
- Reading in the history classroom
- Making history accessible for all
- Participants' response tasks
Module 4: Teaching the medieval world
- Introduction
- Conversation: What do we want students to know and understand about the medieval world?
- Taking a long view of the medieval world
- Broadening the scope of the medieval world
- Building and complexifying the medieval world
- Mentor reflection
- Participants' response tasks
Module 5: Teaching the British Empire
- Introduction
- Conversation: What do we want students to know and understand about the British Empire?
- Taking a long view of the British Empire
- Teaching the British Empire: the trouble with textbooks
- Mentor reflection
- Participants' response tasks
Module 6: Developing (with) our communities
- Introduction
- Why is it so important to keep developing as teachers of our subject
- What is the history teaching community, and how can it support me?
- Developing (within) local networks
- Growing (within) departments
- Mentor reflection
- Participants' response tasks