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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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Building meaningful models of progression
Teaching History article
Setting us free? Building meaningful models of progression for a ‘post-levels' world
Alex Ford was thrilled by the prospect of freedom offered to history departments in England by the abolition of level descriptions within the National Curriculum.
After analysing the range of competing purposes that the level descriptions were previously...
Building meaningful models of progression
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Assessment after levels
Free Teaching History article
Ten years ago, two heads of department in contrasting schools presented a powerfully-argued case for resisting the use of level descriptions within their assessment regimes. Influenced both by research into the nature of children's historical thinking and by principles of assessment for learning, Sally Burnham and Geraint Brown argued that...
Assessment after levels
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ICT Resources for GCSE History Teachers
Article
The HA has compiled 3 invaluable spreadsheets that take you through the main History GCSE specifications, topic by topic, providing online resources for each topic and covering all the areas specified by the main awarding bodies. Each spreadsheet takes you through each specification and is filled with links to all the best available...
ICT Resources for GCSE History Teachers
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Past Forward: Keynote address: fulfilling history's potential
Article
How much is it possible to love a subject? “I get so excited about my next history lesson” wrote Peter in December, “that I find myself dreaming about it before it happens”.1 How much is it possible for a teacher to love a subject? You love it so much that...
Past Forward: Keynote address: fulfilling history's potential
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Past Forward: History and ICT
Article
ICT in History has made tremendous leaps forward in recent years, although it needs to be said that these advances do not necessarily represent the day to day experience of every history department. Perhaps the most notable development is in the ICT skills of teachers. The great majority of teachers...
Past Forward: History and ICT
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Past Forward: Historical significance
Article
I recently came across the following in a Sunday newspaper: The Government is expected to announce a major overhaul of mathematics teaching in the next few days and it will be writing to employers and teaching bodies to ask how the subject can be ‘made more relevant to the twenty-first...
Past Forward: Historical significance
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Build it in, don't bolt it on: history's opportunity to support critical citizenship
Teaching History article
Andrew Wrenn offers a wide range of practical examples of the way in which National Curriculum History (and the continuation of its principles at GCSE) supports citizenship education. He focuses chiefly upon Key Element 3, ‘Interpretations', but also Key Element 4 ‘Enquiry'. He illustrates history teachers' long-established concern for the...
Build it in, don't bolt it on: history's opportunity to support critical citizenship
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Exceptional performance at GCSE
Teaching History article
In the last edition of Teaching History (February 1999, Issue 94) Kate Hammond used her own planning and classroom practice to extract some principles for stretching the very able pupil at Key Stage 3. How should history teachers build on this at GCSE? One way of defining goals for such...
Exceptional performance at GCSE
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Historical Association Secondary Survey 2021
Annual Survey Report on History in Secondary Schools
For the past 11 years we have been doing an annual survey into history teaching in secondary schools. This year our main focus was on the content of the history curriculum, examined with a particular focus on diversity.
It looks particularly at diversity understood in terms of race and ethnicity,...
Historical Association Secondary Survey 2021
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Engaging with each other: how interactions between teachers inform professional practice
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What kinds of interaction take place in a history department? What might be their value? Between 1999 and 2003, Simon Letman, then history teacher and Director of Studies at The Royal Hospital School in Ipswich,...
Engaging with each other: how interactions between teachers inform professional practice
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What is good citizenship education in history classrooms?
Teaching History article
Ian Davies, Geoff Hatch, Gary Martin and Tony Thorpe seek to theorise - and to support teachers in their own theorising - concerning the purpose of citizenship education and criteria for good citizenship education. They aim for a professional precision that will be helpful to teachers, getting us beyond the...
What is good citizenship education in history classrooms?
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HA Secondary History Survey 2010
HA Survey
The Historical Association publishes a major survey into the state of history teaching in English secondary schools today and reports some very worrying trends. A significant number of teachers report serious concerns that history is disappearing in their schools, with senior managers assuming that the study of the past has...
HA Secondary History Survey 2010
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Innovation, inspiration and diversification: new approaches to history at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Good history teaching should not be the responsibility of a single department working in isolation. The history subject community as a whole should work together to ensure that history teaching is of as high a quality as possible. This does not mean that every department, and every teacher, should do...
Innovation, inspiration and diversification: new approaches to history at Key Stage 3
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HA Secondary History Survey 2014
Survey Report
‘History for all' is a phrase that has been used by many, including politicians, and historical knowledge has long been viewed as an essential part of a citizens' understanding of Britain and the wider world. Unfortunately, the HA annual survey for 2014 has revealed that bit by small bit that...
HA Secondary History Survey 2014
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HA Secondary History Survey 2013
HA Survey
For the last four years the HA sends to all schools and colleges teaching students in the 11-18 age range a survey. The survey was sent out during the second half of the spring term 2013. Responses were received from 557 history teachers working in different contexts including middle schools...
HA Secondary History Survey 2013
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Progression without Levels
Briefing Pack
"As part of our reforms to the national curriculum , the current system of ‘levels' used to report children's attainment and progress will be removed. It will not be replaced." (DfE 2013)
When National Curriculum levels were removed in 2014, it was all too easy to fall into the trap of...
Progression without Levels
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HA Secondary History Survey 2012
HA Survey
A little over a year ago Michael Gove announced the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc). It would transform education and rid schools and young people of ‘soft subjects'. However the real impact so far has been less than impressive. Those schools that already taught history well to GCSE continued...
HA Secondary History Survey 2012
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HA Secondary History Survey 2011
HA Survey
Findings from the Historical Association survey of secondary school history teachers in England 2011Authors: Dr Katharine Burn, Institute of Education and Dr Richard Harris, Southampton University(Summary and Full Survey Report attached below)This survey is carried out each year to monitor and evaluate history teaching and access to history in our...
HA Secondary History Survey 2011
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New Saxon, Viking and Medieval GCSE Content
GCSE Resources
As you will no doubt be aware, GCSEs are changing. New specifications (subject to accreditation) will require students to learn history from a range of different time periods. Different specifications will specify different content, but whichever specification you end up teaching, you are very likely to be teaching some medieval...
New Saxon, Viking and Medieval GCSE Content
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Why we must change history GCSE
Teaching History article
A head of steam for change in GCSE history has been building for some time now amongst history teachers, heads of history, advisers, teacher-trainers, researchers, consultants and all who regularly engage in debate about history teaching and learning. All those who read widely, share their practice, experience many Key Stage...
Why we must change history GCSE
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What's happening in History? Trends in GCSE and 'A'-level examinations
Teaching History article
Teaching History frequently celebrates and analyses the practice of those history departments that appear to buck trends. In keeping with the Historical Association’s Campaign for History and its popular ‘Choosing History at 14’ Pack, a number of articles and Triumphs Shows in recent editions of Teaching History have celebrated the...
What's happening in History? Trends in GCSE and 'A'-level examinations
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HA Secondary History Survey 2009
HA Survey
Pupils are receiving fewer and fewer hours of history teaching across secondary schools in England according to research by the Historical Association. The specially commissioned report discovered that:Many children receive little or no history education after only two years of secondary school48% of academies report 11-12 year olds spend less...
HA Secondary History Survey 2009
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HA Secondary History Survey 2010
Survey
Findings from the Historical Association survey of secondary history teachers 2010
Summary of key concerns about history teaching in English secondary schools
*Full report attached below
1. The changing face of history teaching at Key Stage 3 (11-14): an emphasis on generic skills at the expense of subject knowledge and...
HA Secondary History Survey 2010
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Background information: citizenship and history
HITT Resource
Citizenship was introduced as a National Curriculum subject at key stages 3 and 4 in 2002. Prior to that many schools had taught aspects of citizenship as a cross-curricular theme, often in the context of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). Much of the impetus for introducing citizenship as a...
Background information: citizenship and history
