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Low-stakes testing
Teaching History article
The emphasis on the power of secure substantive knowledge reflected in recent curriculum reforms has prompted considerable interest in strategies to help students retain and deploy such knowledge effectively. One strategy that has been strongly endorsed by some cognitive psychologists is regular testing; an idea that Nick Dennis set out...
Low-stakes testing
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Essay writing for everyone: an investigation into different methods used to teach Year 9 to write an essay
Teaching History article
Essay writing is at the very heart of school history, yet despite the wide range of developments in this area over the past decade, pupils still struggle. Alex Scott and his department decided to investigate a variety of methods to see what methods worked in enabling pupils to construct essays...
Essay writing for everyone: an investigation into different methods used to teach Year 9 to write an essay
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Philip II of Spain: The Prudent King
Article
On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Philip II’s death James Casey rejects the traditional portrayal of the Spanish ruler as a cruel despot and argues his achievements were more the result of an extraordinary sense of duty fully in tune with the hopes and aspirations of his people....
Philip II of Spain: The Prudent King
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Polychronicon 163: Europe: the longest debate
Teaching History feature
On 23 June, electors in the United Kingdom will vote on whether they wish to remain part of the European Union. The passionate debate around the question has seen the spectre of Hitler and the example of Churchill invoked, with varying plausibility, by both sides. It has also drawn on the...
Polychronicon 163: Europe: the longest debate
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Progression & Assessment without Levels - Guide
Progression & Assessment
In the 2014 national curriculum for primary and secondary history one of the key differences is that, for the first time since 1991, there are no level descriptions against which you can assess pupils' progress. The new attainment target says simply that:
‘By the end of each key stage, pupils...
Progression & Assessment without Levels - Guide
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Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12
Teaching History article
In this article Sophie Harley-McKeown identifies and addresses her Year 12 students’ blind spot over agentive explanation. Noticing that the examination board to which she teaches uses ‘motivations’ rather than ‘aims’ prompted her to consider whether her students really knew what that meant. Finding that her students’ causal explanations tended...
Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12
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Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?
Teaching History feature
In August 1945, Zalman Grinberg, a doctor from Kovno and spokesman for the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany, addressed 1,700 Jewish survivors. ‘What is the logic of destiny to let these individuals remain alive?!' he asked them:
We are free now, but we do not know what...
Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?
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An authentic voice: perspectives on the value of listening to survivors of genocide
Teaching History article
It is common practice to invite survivors of the Holocaust to speak about their experiences to pupils in schools and colleges. Systematic reflection on the value of working with survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides and on how to make the most of doing so is rarer, however. In...
An authentic voice: perspectives on the value of listening to survivors of genocide
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Why can't they just live together happily, Miss?' Unravelling the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict at GCSE
Teaching History article
How often do our students long for black and white rather than the shades of grey that history generally presents us with? Understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is all about understanding diversity and complexity in all their shades of grey. Alison Stephen, teaching in an immensely diverse school herself, is determined...
Why can't they just live together happily, Miss?' Unravelling the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict at GCSE
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Move Me On 162: Reading
Teaching History feature
This issue’s problem: James Connolly is finding it difficult to judge how much or what kind of reading he should expect of his students.
James Connolly, an eager and knowledgeable historian, has frequently struggled to pitch things appropriately for students. This applies particularly to his expectations of their reading, but also...
Move Me On 162: Reading
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England's Immigrants 1330-1550
Multipage Article
An HA Podcast with Professor Mark Ormrod of the University of York looking at the research project England's Immigrants 1330-1550. In this podcast Professor Ormrod explores the extensive archival evidence about the names, origins, occupations and households of a significant number of foreigners who chose to make their lives and livelihoods in...
England's Immigrants 1330-1550
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Cunning Plan 177: teaching about life in Elizabethan England by looking at death
Teaching History feature
‘We already did the Tudors in primary school’ was the most frequent comment made by students about our Year 7 scheme of learning in our annual review. Students reported covering the Tudors at least once, sometimes twice, before reaching secondary school and they had clearly not faced extensive further study...
Cunning Plan 177: teaching about life in Elizabethan England by looking at death
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Polychronicon 151: Interpreting the Revolution of 1688
Teaching History feature
John Morrill, one of the foremost historians of the British civil wars, has described the events of 1688-9 as the ‘Sensible Revolution'. The phrase captures the essence of a long-standing scholarly consensus, that this was a very unrevolutionary revolution.
The origins of this interpretation go back to the late eighteenth...
Polychronicon 151: Interpreting the Revolution of 1688
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Developing students' thinking about change and continuity
Teaching History article
The more things change, the more they stay the same: developing students' thinking about change and continuity
Finding ways to characterise the nature of change and continuity is an important part of the historian's task, yet students find it particularly challenging to do. Building on her previous work on change, Rachel...
Developing students' thinking about change and continuity
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What is Bias?
Article
There is a nice story about how Calvin Coolidge went to hear a clergyman preach on sin. "What did he say?" he was asked. 'He said he was against it', Coolidge replied. The history teacher or student, well used by now to the normal form of questions at GCSE, might...
What is Bias?
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Writing the First World War - Podcasts
Writing the First World War
The Writing the First World War event in partnership with the English Association and the British Library took place at the British Library in London on April 14th.
Over 80 teachers attended a wonderful day of stimulating professional development which was kicked off by a thought provoking take on how...
Writing the First World War - Podcasts
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Does scaffolding make them fall? Reflecting on strategies for developing causal argument in Years 8 and 11
Teaching History article
Jennifer Evans and Gemma Pate, history teachers in two Essex schools, had noticed that sometimes a writing frame did the opposite of what was intended. Sometimes a card sort fostered rich discussion and ownership; sometimes it led the students down a reductive rather than mind-opening path. Sometimes modelling of paragraphs...
Does scaffolding make them fall? Reflecting on strategies for developing causal argument in Years 8 and 11
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The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
Article
W. A. Speck reviews an historical debate central to the interpretation of the eighteenth century in Britain. Few British historians treat the eighteenth century as consisting simply of the hundred years from 1701 to 1800. Until recently political historians tended to end it in 1783. Many textbooks reflect this treatment...
The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
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Hitting the right note: how useful is the music of African-Americans to historians?
Teaching History article
Here is a wonderful reminder of the richness of materials available to history teachers. With ever greater emphasis being placed on different learning styles, it is a good moment to remind ourselves that we can cater for virtually all of them in our classrooms. This includes a preference for learning...
Hitting the right note: how useful is the music of African-Americans to historians?
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Do we have to read all of this?' Encouraging students to read for understanding
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What’s the hardest part of history? Heads of Year 9 at options time seem depressingly clear - ‘Don’t do history, there’s too much writing.’ David Hellier and Helen Richards show that at The Green School...
Do we have to read all of this?' Encouraging students to read for understanding
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Enquiries to engage Year 7 in medieval anarchy
Teaching History article
Wrestling with Stephen and Matilda: planning challenging enquiries to engage Year 7 in medieval anarchy
McDougall found learning about Stephen and Matilda fascinating, was sure that her pupils would also and designed an enquiry to engage them in ‘the anarchy' of 1139-1153 AD. Pupils enjoyed exploring ‘the anarchy' and learning...
Enquiries to engage Year 7 in medieval anarchy
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The dialogic dimensions of knowing and understanding the Norman legacy in Chester
Teaching History article
Michael Bird and Thomas Wilson focus their attention directly on the voices of pupils, in dialogue with their teacher and with each other, as they draw inferences from differing sources about the Norman legacy in Chester. By carefully examining dialogue stimulated by these sources, Bird and Wilson demonstrate not only...
The dialogic dimensions of knowing and understanding the Norman legacy in Chester
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Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
Teaching History article
Tom Bennett begins his article with a tale of a frustrating afternoon with Year 7. We’ve all been there. In his case, his frustration was caused by his finding a conceptual gap between how well his class wanted to do and the actual quality of their causal thinking. Bennett decided...
Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
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Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women
Teaching History feature
The beginnings of the nationally organised campaign for women’s suffrage began with suffragists’ orchestration of the petition to Parliament in favour of female suffrage in 1866. The petition contained almost 1,500 names from across the country and was presented to parliament by the Liberal MP John Stuart Mill; it was...
Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women
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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
