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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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‘Man, people in the past were indeed stupid’
Teaching History journal article
In this article, which is based on Huijgen’s PhD dissertation Balancing between the past and the present, Tim Huijgen and Paul Holthuis present the results of an experimental method of teaching 14–16-year-old students to contextualise their historical studies in a different way. In the four lessons described, students’ initial reactions...
‘Man, people in the past were indeed stupid’
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Teaching the Historic Environment
Guidance for teaching the Historic Environment in new GCSE courses
The GCSE History criteria specify that the courses should cover three geographical contexts: local, British and European/wider world. The requirement to include some local history has been developed into the study of a locality in its Historic Environment. This has been developed in four different ways by the Awarding bodies...
Teaching the Historic Environment
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A comparative revolution?
Teaching History Article
Although the curriculum changes of 2008 brought with them new GCSE specifications, Jonathan White was disappointed by the dated feel of some ‘Modern World' options, particularly the depth studies on offer. Drawing on his experience of teaching comparative history within the International Baccalaureate, and building on previous arguments in Teaching History...
A comparative revolution?
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Thinking about local history - Step by step local study
Article
The short walk from our school to St Mary's Parish Church, Leyton, takes us past late Victorian terraces, post-Second World War apartment blocks and early twentyfirst century social housing in one of the most densely populated and ethnically diverse parts of East London, sandwiched as it is between Stratford and...
Thinking about local history - Step by step local study
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Riots, railways and a Hampshire hill fort: Exploiting local history for rigorous evidential enquiry
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Rigorous historical enquiry is integral to effective history teaching. The 2008 National Curriculum has recognised its importance by giving it a broader definition as a key process to include not only the use of historical...
Riots, railways and a Hampshire hill fort: Exploiting local history for rigorous evidential enquiry
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Causation
Key Concepts
Please note: these links were compiled in 2009. For a more recent resource, please see: What's the Wisdom on: Causation.
These Teaching History Articles on 'Causation' are highly recommended reading to those who would like to get to grips with this key concept:
1. Move Me On 92. Problem page for history mentors. Teaching...
Causation
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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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Change and Continuity
Key Concepts
Please note: these links were compiled in 2009. For a more recent resource, please see: What's the Wisdom on: Change and Continuity.
This selection of useful Teaching History articles on Change and Continuity are highly recommended reading to those who would like to get to grip with these key concepts:
1. Michael Riley: Big Stories and...
Change and Continuity
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Thematic GCSE Content
GCSE Resources
The helpful guide below sets out links to a range of podcasts, articles and pamphlets that will provide subject knowledge guidance that you may find useful for all of the identified thematic topics of the GCSE specifications. In addition there are also links to helpful articles dealing with bigger picture...
Thematic GCSE Content
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Transforming Year 11's conceptual understanding of change
Teaching History article
For all that history teachers appreciate the need to build substantive knowledge and conceptual understanding systematically over time, they are also likely to have experienced that sickening moment when they realise that a Year 11 pupil has somehow missed something fundamental.
In Anna Fielding's case, her pupil's misconception was related to...
Transforming Year 11's conceptual understanding of change
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Designing an enquiry in a challenging setting
Teaching History article
The Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) is a Cyprus-based organization that works to foster dialogue among history teachers and other educators across the divide in Cyprus. In one of their UN-funded projects, ADHR members worked with UK colleagues to shape a lesson sequence and resources on the Ottoman period...
Designing an enquiry in a challenging setting
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Cunning Plan 149.2: Exploring the Migration experience
Teaching History feature
Teaching a class of newly arrived immigrant teenagers from various backgrounds and ethnicities poses many interesting challenges: varied levels of schooling, varied levels of mastery in a new language, no common frame of reference, varied ways of understanding and making sense of the world and very varied ways of making...
Cunning Plan 149.2: Exploring the Migration experience
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English Heritage and Historical Association Local Heritage Project
Article
One year ago (2011), the south eastern branch of English Heritage and the Historical Association came together to see what we could do better in partnership. The outcome was the Local Heritage Partnership Project. The vision was to work together to provide access to and inspiration to carry out local...
English Heritage and Historical Association Local Heritage Project
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'Picture This': A simple technique to teach complex concepts
Teaching History article
When Peter Clements was introduced to the creative strategy that he describes in this article, his immediate reaction was to dismiss it as childish and trivial. Yet, upon closer examination, he realised that ‘Picture This' offered far more than a lively way of increasing variety and engagement in his GCSE...
'Picture This': A simple technique to teach complex concepts
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'How our area used to be back then': An oral history project in an east London school
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
How can oral history enquiries engage students with the study of history and help them connect their learning about the past to their present lives? How can oral history engage and develop students' understanding of...
'How our area used to be back then': An oral history project in an east London school
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Cunning Plan 134: local history at KS3
Teaching History feature
Question: How can we plan to integrate local history into Key Stage 3 schemes of work so that pupils are engaged by the relevance of the subject across different periods of time?
Local history can come in all shapes and sizes, from a large-scale oral history project to the perusal...
Cunning Plan 134: local history at KS3
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Relevant, rigorous and revisited: using local history to make meaning of historical significance
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The idea of engaging pupils with the relevance of local memorials is becoming commonplace in the history classroom. In Teaching History 109, Examining History Edition, Dale Banham's pupils used First World War memorials to assess...
Relevant, rigorous and revisited: using local history to make meaning of historical significance
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Teaching History 134: Local Voices
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 Relevant, rigorous and revisited: using local history to make meaning of historical significance – Geraint Brown and James Woodcock (Read article)
12 Cunning Plan: Local history at KS3 – Dan Moorhouse (Read article)
15 Nutshell
16 Riots, railways and a Hampshire hill fort: exploiting local...
Teaching History 134: Local Voices
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Webinar series: Coherence at Key Stage 4
HA webinar series for subject leaders and teachers of history
What does this series cover?
This series of webinars will consider coherence at Key Stage 4. We will reflect on using sequencing to establish coherence, how different categories of coherence can be used to inform our planning and delivery of GCSE, and how meaningful approaches to assessment will allow pupils’...
Webinar series: Coherence 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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Dealing with the consequences
Teaching History journal article
Do GCSE and A-level questions that purport to be about consequences actually reward reasoning about historical consequences at all? Molly-Ann Navey concluded that they do not and that they fail to encourage the kind of argument that academic historians engage in when reaching judgements about consequences. Navey decided that it...
Dealing with the consequences
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GCSE topics mapped against our resources
HA Resources and GCSE History
At the HA, we know it’s hard enough trying to grapple with new GCSE units of study, assessment and content without also having to research where you can find interesting or supportive resources, either for your own, or your students subject knowledge. Our secondary committee have pooled resources and helped...
GCSE topics mapped against our resources
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Fundamental British Values and history teaching
Article
In this article, Michael Maddison provides an overview of what schools must do in relation to promoting British values, as well as preventing extremism and radicalisation, and why it is so important that opportunities are taken in history to deal with these two pressing issues. It is an updated version...
Fundamental British Values and history teaching
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Key Principles for teaching Thematic Studies at GCSE
GCSE Guidance
For many teachers the thematic study is the most new and most troubling unit of the new GCSE specifications. By following this link, you will be connected to an article that appears on www.thinkinghistory.co.uk. This free website for teachers is maintained by Ian Dawson. In this article Ian works with...
Key Principles for teaching Thematic Studies at GCSE
