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Allowing A-level students to choose their own coursework focus
Teaching History article
Faced with the introduction of the new A-levels in 2015 and with a move to a new school, Eleanor Thomas took the opportunity to embrace yet another challenge: giving her students a complete free choice about the focus of their non-examined assessment (NEA). This article presents the rationale for her...
Allowing A-level students to choose their own coursework focus
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Using databases to explore the real depth in the data
Teaching History article
Is it a good thing to have a lot of evidence? Surely the historian would answer that yes, it is: the more evidence that can be used, the better. The problem with this approach, though, is that too much data can be overwhelming for the history student - and, in...
Using databases to explore the real depth in the data
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What made your essay successful? I ‘T.A.C.K.L.E.D' the essay question!
Teaching History article
Teaching in Singapore, Tze Kwang Teo cannot conceive of a history teacher unfamiliar with the mnemonic ‘PEE' (or ‘PEEL') used to structure students' essays. Its ubiquity is testimony to its power, reminding students both to explain and to substantiate their claims. Yet, as Foster and Gadd have argued, its neat formulation can restrict and distort historical thinking. Building on their critique, Teo argues that the focus of PEE/L...
What made your essay successful? I ‘T.A.C.K.L.E.D' the essay question!
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The Harkness Method: achieving higher-order thinking with sixth-form
Teaching History article
Hark the herald tables sing! Achieving higher-order thinking with a chorus of sixth-form pupils
On 9 April 1930, a philanthropist called Edward Harkness donated millions of dollars to the Phillips Exeter Academy in the USA. He hoped that his donation could be used to find a new way for students to sit around a table...
The Harkness Method: achieving higher-order thinking with sixth-form
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'But why then?' Chronological context and historical interpretations
Teaching History article
When Michael Fordham was introduced to Dr Seuss's Butter Battle Book he immediately recognised its potential value in the classroom as a popular interpretation of the Cold War.
Wanting his Year 9 pupils to explain how and why the past has been interpreted in different ways he shows the potential pitfalls...
'But why then?' Chronological context and historical interpretations
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How does history shape our perceptions of national identity?
History, Perceptions & Identity
A series of podcasts of British students and their peers around the world discussing how a study of history has influenced their perceptions of their national identity and how it has influenced their perceptions of each other. This project has been started by The Mount and Millthorpe Schools in York and Philipp Melanchthon Gymnasium...
How does history shape our perceptions of national identity?
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Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Peter Morgan represents what is best about the reflective practitioner - an experienced teacher of some 15 years' standing, he continues to challenge himself and to seek ways to improve and develop his classroom practice. Deeply influenced by the pedagogy and resources that he encountered on the CPD of the Institute...
Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
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Chatting about the sixties: historical reasoning in essay-writing
Teaching History article
An article about essay writing may not seem the most obvious choice for an issue of Teaching History devoted to creative thinking. Yet, as Christine Counsell so richly demonstrated in her work on analytical and discursive writing, the process of crafting an argument is a highly complex and creative challenge....
Chatting about the sixties: historical reasoning in essay-writing
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Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
Teaching History journal article
Puzzled by the shrugs and unimaginative responses of his students when asked certain counterfactual questions, James Edward Carroll set out to explore what types of counterfactual questions would elicit sophisticated causal explanations. During his pursuit of the ‘gold standard’ of counterfactual reasoning, Carroll drew upon theories of academic history in...
Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
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‘If you had told me before that these students were Russians, I would not have believed it’
Teaching History article
Bjorn Wansink and his co-authors have aligned their teaching of a recent and controversial historical issue – the Cold War – in the light of a contemporary incident.
This article demonstrates a means of ensuring that students understand that different cultures’ views of their shared past are nuanced, rather than monolithic – a different concept in philosophy as well as in...
‘If you had told me before that these students were Russians, I would not have believed it’
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Distant voices, familiar echoes: exploiting the resources to which we all have access
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As an Advanced Skills Teacher, Denise Thompson has often been at the forefront of experimental developments. Five years ago, she reported on trials of an online discussion forum used to sharpen A level students' historical...
Distant voices, familiar echoes: exploiting the resources to which we all have access
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Teaching History 147: Curriculum Architecture
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
08 Beth Baker and Steven Mastin - Did Alexander really ask, ‘Do I appear to you to be a bastard?' Using ancient texts to improve pupils' critical thinking (Read article)
14 Cunning Plan: Getting students to use classical texts - Beth Baker...
Teaching History 147: Curriculum Architecture
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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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The new history 'AS-Level': principles for planning a scheme of work
Teaching History article
The new AS and A2 specifications have led to paperwork, headaches and late nights for teachers. Rachael Rudham recognises the fresh demands that the new AS-level presents – not least of which is the opening up of post-16 history to a broader range of ability. Clearly it is not possible...
The new history 'AS-Level': principles for planning a scheme of work
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Worlds in collision: university tutor and student perspectives on the transition to degree level history
Teaching History article
What does it mean to be good at history? At certain times during their formal education students seem to be required to adjust their understanding of what studying history entails. Alan Booth writes from the viewpoint of a university tutor. He has collated ‘student voice’ on the experience of studying...
Worlds in collision: university tutor and student perspectives on the transition to degree level history
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It's a lot harder than politics'...students' experience of history at Advanced Level
Teaching History article
Does the experience of studying history in the sixth form prepare students adequately for study at university? There is plenty of attention given to the issue of continuity across the Key Stages but much less attention given to the transition from school into higher education. It is largely assumed that...
It's a lot harder than politics'...students' experience of history at Advanced Level
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Basket weaving in Advanced level history...how to plan and teach the 100 year study
Teaching History article
The current specifications for AS/A2 history require students to study change over a period of at least 100 years. Given that the 100 year study represents just one module out of six and also that it may not complement any of the other modules selected and may therefore be wholly...
Basket weaving in Advanced level history...how to plan and teach the 100 year study
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New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the ‘no-quick-fix’
This page is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Each problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don’t exist. But in others’ writing, you’ll find something better: conversations in which history teachers have debated or tackled your problems – conversations which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
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Rescuing assessment from ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’
Teaching History article
Christine Counsell sets out her concerns about the effects on history teaching of recent trends in secondary assessment practice. Situating her analysis within a long-term story of interplay between government policy, classroom practice and school leadership responses to inspection, Counsell sees new distortions emerging in the name of knowledge. She argues...
Rescuing assessment from ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’
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Creating confident historical readers at A-level
Teaching History article
How can we help pupils learn to read historically? Gary Howells explores this question by explaining how he builds reading challenges into the course of his pupils' post-16 studies and by describing some of the tasks that pupils are set and the principles that underpin them. Howells argues that over...
Creating confident historical readers at A-level
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Cunning Plan 163.2: Developing an A-level course in medieval history
Teaching History feature
Medieval history has always been a Cinderella era for post-16 students. Some schools offer A-levels in classical civilisation, but most A-level history courses focus on the early-modern and modern periods. A few schools teach an A-level medieval module, with the Crusades being a popular choice. I was therefore excited at...
Cunning Plan 163.2: Developing an A-level course in medieval history
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New, Novice or Nervous? 152: Describing Progression
Teaching History feature
'New, Novice or Nervous?' is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Every problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don't exist. But if you discover others' writing, you'll soon find - and want to join - something better: an international conversation...
New, Novice or Nervous? 152: Describing Progression
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Why we would miss controlled assessments in history
Teaching History article
A place for individual enquiry? Why we would miss controlled assessments in history
Most history teachers will, at some point, recognise the tension between teaching an engaging history course while at the same time meeting the requirements of an exam specification. Mark Fowle and Ben Egelnick reflect here on how...
Why we would miss controlled assessments in history
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Historiography from below: how undergraduates remember learning history at school
Teaching History article
What do our students make of the history that we teach them? As part of an introductory module on historiography, Marcus Collins asked his undergraduate students to analyse the history that they had been taught at school and college using historiographic concepts. The results make for interesting reading. What do...
Historiography from below: how undergraduates remember learning history at school
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Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
Teaching History article
Understanding historical interpretation involves understanding how historical knowledge is constructed. How do sixth formers model historical epistemology? In this article Arthur Chapman examines a small sample of data relating to sixth form students' ideas about why historians construct differing interpretations of the past. He argues that understanding interpretation requires students to...
Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
