-
Doomed Youth: Using theatre to support teaching about the First World War
Teaching History article
Many history teachers will have taken their GCSE pupils to School History Scene's Hitler on Trial for a rigorous and inspirational session, using drama, in preparation for the GCSE examination. Josh Brooman has now broadened the work of School History Scene by writing a new play, Doomed Youth, aimed at...
Doomed Youth: Using theatre to support teaching about the First World War
-
Pride and delight: motivating pupils through poetic writing about the First World War
Teaching History article
This project emerged from team-teaching with history teachers in history lessons. Gill Minikin draws upon her expertise as an English teacher to help pupils become excited by the challenge of ‘squeezing language' into poems. History teachers often ask pupils to write poems but they do not necessarily draw upon all...
Pride and delight: motivating pupils through poetic writing about the First World War
-
Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
Article
Mike Murray analyses the way in which curriculum development has broadened and strengthened our conceptions of high standards in historical learning for school students. He pays tribute to ground-breaking new theoretical principles from the Schools History Project and from new emphases upon contextual knowledge and ‘interpretations' in the first National...
Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
-
Emotional response or objective enquiry? Using shared stories and a sense of place in the study of interpretations for GCSE
Article
In this article, Andrew Wrenn explores some issues that teachers might consider when supporting 14 and 15 year olds in their study of war memorials as historical interpretations. Tony McAleavy has argued that ‘popular' and ‘personal' interpretations and representations are just as worthy of study at Key Stage 3 as...
Emotional response or objective enquiry? Using shared stories and a sense of place in the study of interpretations for GCSE
-
And Joe arrives...: stretching the very able pupil in the mixed ability classroom
Articles
Kate Hammond examines a sequence of three history lessons in order to evaluate techniques for stretching a very able 11 year-old. She adopts a complex blend of differentiation strategies. Rather than merely bolting on ‘extension activities', she starts with demanding objectives for all, as the whole-class entitlement. She then attempts...
And Joe arrives...: stretching the very able pupil in the mixed ability classroom
-
Why go on a pilgrimage? Using a concluding enquiry to reinforce and assess earlier learning
Teaching History article
Jamie Byrom describes the learning activities within a final enquiry for a National Curriculum area of study - Britain 1066-1500. The strong message in this article is that the learning in each enquiry is only as good as the planning and teaching of the enquiries that precede it. Byrom's model...
Why go on a pilgrimage? Using a concluding enquiry to reinforce and assess earlier learning
-
'Didn't we do that in Year 7?' Planning for progress in evidential understanding
Teaching History article
Christine Counsell describes a lively activity, ideal for Year 9, in which pupils compare and interrelate a collection of sources. The activity leads pupils into thinking about the sources as a collection, and about the enquiry as an evidential problem. Or at least it can do. The article discusses the...
'Didn't we do that in Year 7?' Planning for progress in evidential understanding
-
Cunning Plan 99: 'a world study after 1900'
Teaching History feature
This unit could still become a trawl through two World Wars and then the Cold War (if you don't run out of time). So, when reviewing your planning why not take advantage of being at the turn of a century? Ask pupils what will the twentieth century be remembered for?...
Cunning Plan 99: 'a world study after 1900'
-
Beyond bias: making source evaluation meaningful to year 7
Teaching History article
In this article, Heidi Le Cocq demonstrates how to introduce Year 7 pupils to sophisticated techniques for evaluating sources. Taking up Seán Lang's criticism of the inappropriate use of the term ‘bias', she shows how even very young pupils can be encouraged to move beyond this wearisome response to questions...
Beyond bias: making source evaluation meaningful to year 7
-
What is progress in history?
Teaching History article
Evelyn Vermeulen argues that in order for teachers to identify outcomes for the learning of history, they must think clearly about the different attributes of the discipline - its ideas, structures and processes - and the relationship between them. Here, she takes us on her own professional thinking journey. She...
What is progress in history?
-
'A lot of guess work goes on': Children's understanding of historical accounts
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
The ESRC-funded Project Chata has collected evidence of children's ideas about the discipline of history and attempted to see if there is any progression in those ideas. Here, Peter Lee describes how Chata has tried...
'A lot of guess work goes on': Children's understanding of historical accounts
-
The 'structured enquiry' is not a contradiction in terms: focused teaching for independent learning
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
Mike Gorman uses the language of the National Curriculum Order to describe and analyse his practice. Yet he throws down a challenge to those who use it uncritically rather than interpreting it to make their...
The 'structured enquiry' is not a contradiction in terms: focused teaching for independent learning
-
My essays could go on forever: using Key Stage 3 to improve performance at GCSE
Teaching History article
History teachers are waking up to the fact that you cannot raise standards in GCSE by very much if you leave this work until Year 10. To leave it that late is to resort to surface, tactical moves rather than to address the deep reasons why so many pupils find...
My essays could go on forever: using Key Stage 3 to improve performance at GCSE
-
Cunning Plan 98: Britain 1750-1900
Teaching History feature
Isaac Newton: ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction'. Learning that results from action and reaction deepens pupils' understanding of historical content and use of key study skills. It forces them to understand, to wrestle, to articulate, to challenge, to question. Getting pupils to act and react...
Cunning Plan 98: Britain 1750-1900
-
Substantial sculptures or sad little plaques? Making 'interpretations' matter to Year 9
Teaching History article
Andrew Wrenn builds upon current, popular and practical work on ‘interpretations of history' analysed in recent editions. Using the public's responses to the temporary exhibition on the slave trade housed at Bristol City Museum, he offers a range of fascinating practical activities for Year 9 pupils. Many of these could...
Substantial sculptures or sad little plaques? Making 'interpretations' matter to Year 9
-
Denis Shemilt's four stages of adolescent ideas about historical methods in a nutshell
Article
Denis Shemilt's four stages of adolescent ideas about historical methods in a nutshell.
Denis Shemilt's four stages of adolescent ideas about historical methods in a nutshell
-
Cunning Plan 97: A-Level: International Relations 1890-1914
Teaching History feature
'No war is inevitable until it starts.' Good quote. Not mine, but A.J.P. Taylor's. The outbreak of the First World War is a good way to test it! Did the statesmen of the day know the First World War was coming? Put another way, why was there no general European...
Cunning Plan 97: A-Level: International Relations 1890-1914
-
Weighing a century with a website: teaching Year 9 to be critical
Teaching History article
Two years ago the history department at Hampstead School was one of two history departments chosen to model very effective use of IT in history for a BECTA research study. Two years on, what has the department been up to? All of the factors identified in that study -an ICT...
Weighing a century with a website: teaching Year 9 to be critical
-
Frameworks for linking pupils' evidential understanding with growing skill in structured, written argument: the 'evidence sandwich'
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History teachers are increasingly good at designing exercises which develop skill in evidence analysis. The ubiquitous ‘source' is invariably analysed for utility and reliability. But how do pupils integrate such understandings with extended written work?...
Frameworks for linking pupils' evidential understanding with growing skill in structured, written argument: the 'evidence sandwich'
-
Cunning Plan 96: teaching citizenship through KS3 history
Teaching History feature
Big theme: dissent and the formation of the concept of ‘rights'
You can teach citizenship not only without compromising National Curriculum content, processes and concepts, but in such a way as to improve them. Review your department's ‘whole Key Stage' planning. Secure rigour and high levels of challenge by remembering...
Cunning Plan 96: teaching citizenship through KS3 history
-
Democracy is not boring
Teaching History article
Seán Lang argues that whilst history teachers have expressed much support for the citizenship education proposals, and whilst their practice already addresses the skills of evidence-weighing, debate and argument, there are huge gaps in our coverage of relevant content. He argues that the freedom with which teachers may currently interpret...
Democracy is not boring
-
Ordinary pupils, extraordinary results: a structured approach to raising attainment at GCSE
Article
It is a very common complaint that history GCSE is unfairly demanding compared with other subjects. Well, it probably is. But that does not stop history at Robert Clack School from outperforming every other subject except art. Nor is this the story of one of those schools with an unusually...
Ordinary pupils, extraordinary results: a structured approach to raising attainment at GCSE
-
Cunning Plan 94: Study Unit 2: Crowns, Parliaments and Peoples, 1500-1750
Article
Flesh and blood people bring history to life. Capture the interest of our Year 8 pupils by making sure they engage with human dilemmas and dangers. A focus on individual people as the starting point for enquiries helps pupils to tackle the ‘big' stories (overviews) and difficult concepts.
Cunning Plan 94: Study Unit 2: Crowns, Parliaments and Peoples, 1500-1750
-
Move Me On 92: Having problems teaching causation
The problem page for history mentors
This Issue's Problem: Melville Miles, student history teacher, is in Term 3 of his PGCE year. Melville has taught a number of excellent lessons in which he enabled pupils to reach high levels of historical understanding. His diagnostic assessment of pupils' work is unusually sophisticated for a PGCE student. Melville's...
Move Me On 92: Having problems teaching causation
-
History using information technology: past, present and future
Article
Alaric Dickinson gives an overview of recent developments in the teaching of history using ICT and relates these to different contexts. He examines the appeal of the History Using IT materials and places these in the context of earlier developments. He also considers the role of ICT in the context...
History using information technology: past, present and future
