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Cunning Plan 163.1: GCSE Thematic study
Teaching History feature
I started teaching ‘crime and punishment through time’ thematically a few years ago. I was teaching it as a Schools History Project ‘study in development’. We had moved from ‘medicine through time’ in order to keep things fresh. After six times through the content, much as I loved it, crime,...
Cunning Plan 163.1: GCSE Thematic study
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Britain 1900-1918
Links to Articles & Podcasts
Writing the First World War - Podcasts
Richard Evans Medlicott lecture: The Origins of the First World War
Gary Sheffield: Origins of the First World War
The Parliament Act of 1911
The Suffragette Movement - Podcast
LGBT History 1914-18
Domestic impact of World War I
First World War treaties...
Britain 1900-1918
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Teaching History Curriculum Supplement 2014
Changes to the secondary history curriculum
Although modifications to the content of the National Curriculum for history have not been as dramatic as once feared, the effective revocation of the previous attainment target is radical indeed. When these changes are considered alongside the fact that more than half of maintained secondary schools (all academies and free...
Teaching History Curriculum Supplement 2014
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Cunning Plan 147: Getting students to use classical texts
Teaching History feature
The following plan provides a more detailed practical example of the approaches discussed in the article on using ancient texts.
Having puzzled over what ancient texts actually are - carefully constructed interpretations? testimonies? (but testimonies to what?) myths? - I wanted my Ancient History GCSE class to engage in this...
Cunning Plan 147: Getting students to use classical texts
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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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Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their casual reasoning
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Does new vocabulary help students to express existing ideas for which they do not yet have words or does it actually give them new ideas which they did not previously hold? James Woodcock asks whether...
Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their casual reasoning
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GCSE Topic Pack: Medicine through Time
Topic Pack
Medicine Through Time is a Development study. It traces the development of medical practice from prehistoric times to present day. This development is not always continuous and sometime knowledge went backwards or stayed the same for long periods of time. You will need to know the reasons for this. Medical...
GCSE Topic Pack: Medicine through Time
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'What's that stuff you're listening to Sir?' Rock and pop music as a rich source for historical enquiry
Teaching History article
Building on the wonderful articles by Mastin and Sweerts & Grice in TH 108, Simon Butler urges us here to make greater use of rock and pop music in history classrooms. His reasons are persuasive. First, it provides a rich vein of initial stimulus material to tap, helping us to...
'What's that stuff you're listening to Sir?' Rock and pop music as a rich source for historical enquiry
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International relations at GCSE... they just can't get enough of it
Teaching History article
There is no reason why pupils of so-called ‘average’ and ‘below-average ability’ cannot both understand and enjoy studying complicated international events. Indeed, in the interests of inclusion and raised standards, it is vital that they do. Our Letters Pages in the last two editions captured something of the history teaching...
International relations at GCSE... they just can't get enough of it
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New Treatments of Familiar Topics
National Curriculum 2016
Comparision of new GCSE Specifications Treatment of Familiar Topics If you, like many other departments are beginning to ask the questions that will determine which of the new history GCSE specifications your department will choose, one consideration may well be looking at the retention of familiar topics that you already...
New Treatments of Familiar Topics
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Podcast Series: The History of Science
Multipage Article
In this series of podcasts we take a look at the history of the Royal Society and the influence it has had on the history and development of science.
This series features: Keith Moore, Head of Libraries and Archives at the Royal Society, Dr Jordan Goodman, Dr Patricia Fara of...
Podcast Series: The History of Science
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Developing awareness of the need to select evidence
Teaching History article
Let's play Supermarket ‘Evidential' Sweep: developing students' awareness of the need to select evidence
Despite having built a sustained focus on historical thinking into their planning for progression across Years 7 to 13, Rachel Foster and Sarah Gadd remained frustrated with stubborn weaknesses in the evidential thinking of students in...
Developing awareness of the need to select evidence
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New approaches to teaching the History of Appeasement in the classroom
Multipage Article
This project has been created on the initiative of Professor Julie. V. Gottlieb, Dept. of History, University of Sheffield. British political history, political conflict, appeasement and the Munich Crisis (1938) itself is the focus of her research and publications. Rather than approach these topics from ‘traditional’, elite and history from...
New approaches to teaching the History of Appeasement in the classroom
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'...trying to count the stars': using the story of Bergen-Belsen to teach the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Maria Osowiecki's search for the right questions to frame her students' study of the Holocaust was driven initially by the proximity of her school to the site of Bergen-Belsen, and the particular interests and concerns of her students as members of British Forces families. But, as this article richly demonstrates,...
'...trying to count the stars': using the story of Bergen-Belsen to teach the Holocaust
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Move Me On 144: Defines GCSE teaching in terms of a diet of practice exam questions
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Roger Wendover has come to define GCSE teaching in terms of a diet of practice exam questions.
Roger is a few weeks into his second placement and his mentor, John, has been taken aback by the rigid approach that he has adopted in teaching Year 10. John was...
Move Me On 144: Defines GCSE teaching in terms of a diet of practice exam questions
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A hankering for the blank spaces: enabling the very able to explore the limits of GCSE
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Many of us would love to have the problems encountered by Oliver Knight at his previous school. His students were simply doing too well - leaving him wondering how to stretch them to the limit...
A hankering for the blank spaces: enabling the very able to explore the limits of GCSE
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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
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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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My journey to Bosnia: The Balkans Conflict 22 years on
A personal account of an educational visit to Sarajevo and Srebrenica
In these pages HA Education Manager Melanie Jones shares her own personal experiences and reflections from a recent educational visit to Bosnia, and looks at ways in which British schools might be able to explore aspects of the 1990s Balkans Conflict.
In September 2017 I was approached by a small charitable organisation Remembering...
My journey to Bosnia: The Balkans Conflict 22 years on
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History GCSE Specification Comparison Tool
GCSE Resource
This short guidance is designed to help you compare the 9-1 GCSE specifications. The first examinations of these new linear GCSEs was in the summer of 2018.
History GCSE Specification Comparison Tool
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Cunning Plan 108: teaching Tudor architecture
Teaching History feature
In this edition of 'Cunning Plan' Diana Laffin illustrates how Tudor Architecture can be taught.
Cunning Plan 108: teaching Tudor architecture
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A guide to Assessment Reform at Key Stage 4
Briefing Pack
Big changes in assessment at Key Stage 4 took place the last time specifications were reformed. If you want to compare the assessment approaches taken by different examination Boards, then this handy briefing guide will provide you with the introductory information you need to be able to make sense of...
A guide to Assessment Reform at Key Stage 4
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Using historical discourse to find narrative coherence in the GCSE period study
Teaching History article
When planning a GCSE period study on the American West, Alex Ford wrestled with reconciling the content demands of the examination specifications with the need to provide his students with a memorable narrative. In this article, Ford shows how he drew on the latest academic scholarship to construct a rigorous,...
Using historical discourse to find narrative coherence in the GCSE period study
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Shaping the debate: why historians matter more than ever at GCSE
Teaching History article
The question of how to prepare students to succeed in the examination while also ensuring that they are taught rigorous history remains as relevant as ever. Faced with preparing students to answer a question that seemingly precluded argument, Rachel Foster and Kath Goudie demonstrate how they used historical scholarship both to...
Shaping the debate: why historians matter more than ever at GCSE
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Edward I
Links to Articles & Podcasts
The Nation of the Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath
The Scottish Wars of Independence
Edward I: Relations between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland
Edward I: Law and State
Edward I
