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Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the last edition of Teaching History, Maria Osowiecki described in detail the fourth lesson in a five-lesson enquiry entitled: What was remarkable about the Renaissance? She also shared her resources for two lively, interactive...
Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
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Does differentiation have to mean different?
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Richard Harris questions common assumptions about differentiation. In particular, he encourages teachers to avoid accepting too readily the view that pupils of different abilities must be given different resources or activities. Instead he builds a...
Does differentiation have to mean different?
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Teaching History 157: Assessment
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
This edition of HA's Teaching History journal is free to download via the link at the bottom of the page (individual article links within the page are not free access unless otherwise stated).
For a subscription to Teaching History (published quarterly), plus access to our library of high-quality secondary...
Teaching History 157: Assessment
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Teaching History 127: Sense and Sensitivity
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
04 Music, blood and terror: making emotive and controversial history matter – Andrew Wrenn and Tim Lomas (Read article)
11 Nutshell
13 Teaching controversial issues… where controversial issues really matter – Keith Barton and Alan McCully (Read article)
20 Polychronicon: the Crusades (Read article)
22 Identity-shakers: cultural encounters and the...
Teaching History 127: Sense and Sensitivity
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'I just wish we could go back in the past and find out what really happened': progression in understanding about historical accounts
Teaching History article
This is the second in a series of articles for Teaching History in which Peter Lee and Denis Shemilt share the findings of Project Chata (Concepts of History and Teaching Approaches). In their first article (see Edition 113), they questioned the wisdom of using the National Curriculum attainment target as...
'I just wish we could go back in the past and find out what really happened': progression in understanding about historical accounts
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Teaching History 126: Outside the Classroom
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
06 ‘I understood before, but not like this:’ maximising historical learning by letting pupils take control of trips – Helen Snelson (Read article)
12 A search beyond the classroom: using a museum to support the renewal of a scheme of work – Hannah Moloney and Paula Kitching (Read article)
20...
Teaching History 126: Outside the Classroom
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Time for chronology? Ideas for developing chronological understanding
Teaching History article
The successful study of history requires many things, but few would contest that an understanding of time is one of them. Quite what we mean by ‘an understanding of time’ needs clarification, however. Chronological understanding is one feature. But it is not simply an ability to place events in order...
Time for chronology? Ideas for developing chronological understanding
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Seeing double: how one period visualises another
Teaching History article
When pupils study interpretations or representations of the past which are neither from their own period nor from the period being interpreted/represented, they are having to employ sophisticated knowledge and skill. Jane Card describes this as ‘double vision’: the pupils must think about the period depicted (in this case the...
Seeing double: how one period visualises another
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Teaching History 123: Constructing History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
06 Asses, archers and assumptions: strategies for improving thinking skills in history in Years 9 to 13 – Arthur Chapman (Read article)
14 Triumphs Show: 'Source Specs': making sources fun - Rachael Povey (Read article)
16 Little Jack Horner and polite revolutionaries: putting the story back into history – Alf Wilkinson (Read...
Teaching History 123: Constructing History
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Teaching History 124: Teaching the most able
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
06 Expertise in its development phase: planning for the needs of gifted adolescent historians – Deborah Eyre (Read article)
09 Duffy’s devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write – Rachel Ward (Read article)
17 Mussolini’s missing marbles: simulating history at GCSE – Arthur Chapman and James Woodcock (Read article)...
Teaching History 124: Teaching the most able
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'If Jesus Christ were amongst them, they would deceive Him'
Teaching History article
During discussions about planning, Tim Kemp and Charlotte Bickmore recently concluded that despite the name they give to their major Year 8 unit (The Making of the United Kingdom), they tend mainly to focus on England, and even more especially, on London. They have a good point. Ask an average...
'If Jesus Christ were amongst them, they would deceive Him'
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Geography in the Holocaust: citizenship denied
Teaching History article
In this article David Lambert argues powerfully for teachers of the humanities to place citizenship at the centre of their work. He seeks to demonstrate that the division between subject-boundaries needs to be broken through if students are not to be denied what they are entitled to: an understanding of...
Geography in the Holocaust: citizenship denied
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Plotting maps and mapping minds: what can maps tell us about the people who made them
Teaching History article
As historians, we know that ‘factual’ information should never be uncritically accepted. And yet, too often, that is exactly what we do with the maps we use to locate ourselves and our students. Evelyn Sweerts and Marie-Claire Cavanagh, who now work in a European School in Brussels but until recently...
Plotting maps and mapping minds: what can maps tell us about the people who made them
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Tripping over the levels: experiences from Ontario
Teaching History article
Here in the United Kingdom, we are used to the idea of assessing pupils’ work against Levels. In fact, perhaps we are a little too used to it. Our familiarity with the Level Descriptions in the National Curriculum, and the ways they might inform our Key Stage 3 assessments, can...
Tripping over the levels: experiences from Ontario
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Question: When is a comment not worth the paper it's written on? Answer: When it's accompanied by a Level, grade or mark!
Teaching History article
In this article, Simon Butler advances a strong case for ‘comments only’ marking. Good assessment, he argues, is about encouraging students to reflect on their current performance and take responsibility for their own progress. Assigning Levels to pupils’ work is often justified in terms of the generation of targets which...
Question: When is a comment not worth the paper it's written on? Answer: When it's accompanied by a Level, grade or mark!
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The teaching and learning of history for 15-16 year olds: have the Japanese anything to learn from the English experience
Teaching History article
What would you expect the differences to be between Japan and England in how pupils learn history in the post-14 phase? Perhaps your guess would be: Japanese school students learn a lot of historical facts and focus upon their own identity and English school students talk a lot more in...
The teaching and learning of history for 15-16 year olds: have the Japanese anything to learn from the English experience
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'Please send socks': How much can Reg Wilkes tell us about the Great War?
Teaching History article
This was an opportunity all good historians dream about. A large box crammed with artefacts about a soldier who fought in the First World War, just begging to be read, studied, sorted and organised. Being faced with such a wealth of uncatalogued primary evidence could have proved daunting enough without...
'Please send socks': How much can Reg Wilkes tell us about the Great War?
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Teaching History 116: Place
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
This edition deals with how the purpose of history relates to the purpose of geography or how geography's shaping concepts fit into those of history. How do the two subjects strengthen each other?
06 Sense, Relationship, and Power: Uncommon Views of Place - Liz Taylor (Read article)
14 Cunning Plan: Geography...
Teaching History 116: Place
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Stretching the straight jacket of assessment: use of role play and practical demonstration to enrich pupils' experience of history at GCSE and beyond
Teaching History article
As in his previous, popular and influential Teaching History articles, Ian Luff has once again provided us with a wide range of high-quality, practical activities informed by a rigorous and persuasive rationale. This time, he has turned his attention to the use of role play and active demonstration at GCSE...
Stretching the straight jacket of assessment: use of role play and practical demonstration to enrich pupils' experience of history at GCSE and beyond
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Teaching History 115: Assesment Without Levels?
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
05 Assessment without Level Descriptions - Sally Burnham and Geraint Brown (Read article)
16 Dr Black Box or How I learned to stop worrying and love assessment - Mark Cottingham (Read article)
26 Rigorous, meaningful and robust: practical ways forward for assessment - Simon Harrison (Read article)
31 Opportunities, challenges...
Teaching History 115: Assesment Without Levels?
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A scaffold, not a cage: progression and progression models in history
Teaching History article
The need to understand ways of defining progression in history becomes ever more pressing in the face of a target-setting, assessment-driven regime which requires us to measure progress at every turn. We must defend our professional expertise in terms of measurable outcomes. Did we add value? Have our end of...
A scaffold, not a cage: progression and progression models in history
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JFK: the medium, the message and the myth
Teaching History article
Dale Banham and Russell Hall present a multi-faceted rationale for an in-depth study of the 1991 film, JFK. They treat it as an ‘interpretation’ in the National Curriculum sense, constructing a varied and meticulous learning journey towards its analysis. By the end of that journey pupils had examined the central...
JFK: the medium, the message and the myth
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Cunning Plan 112: Empire
Teaching History feature
‘Empire’ is an historical concept with a rather imprecise range of meanings. Students need to be able to track their changing understanding of what an empire actually is. Into our workschemes for Years 7 to 13 we have therefore introduced a number of enquiry questions that simultaneously build knowledge about...
Cunning Plan 112: Empire
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'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
Teaching History article
In this article, Helena Stride shows how the Imperial War Museum responded to criticism that insufficient attention had been paid to the contribution of black and Asian people to Britain’s wars. She focuses on one of two resource-packs produced by the Museum, which highlights the experience of Britain’s colonial peoples,...
'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
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Teaching History 113: Creating Progress
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
This edition deals with creating progress: History teachers are creating progress - the idea and the reality. Why rely on others to define and design it? The creation process is every teacher's property and there is no celing on what we might help pupils achieve. JFK, Progression models, Roleplay in...
Teaching History 113: Creating Progress
