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Using causation diagrams to help sixth-formers think about cause and effect
Teaching History article
Alex Alcoe was concerned that mastery of certain keywords and question formulae at GCSE perhaps obscured fundamental gaps in his students’ understanding of the nature of causation. These gaps were revealed when he invited Year 12 students to make explicit, by annotating a diagram, their understanding of the relationship between...
Using causation diagrams to help sixth-formers think about cause and effect
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New, Novice or Nervous? 154: Using historical scholarship in the classroom
Teaching History feature
As another World Book Day goes past, you have been watching the English department wax lyrical about all of the wonderful books that pupils might read. You know that there is a wealth of well-written historical scholarship out there for pupils to dive into, yet you are not sure about...
New, Novice or Nervous? 154: Using historical scholarship in the classroom
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Expertise in its development stage: planning for the needs of gifted adolescent historians
Teaching History article
The Director of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY), Deborah Eyre, is one of the foremost advocates of gifted and talented children, and their education, in the UK. She plans to improve the education of the most able students by asking subject communities to work on how...
Expertise in its development stage: planning for the needs of gifted adolescent historians
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Knowing what counts in history: historical understanding and the non-specialist teacher
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
If science graduates think that history teaching is not about questioning, that there is only ‘one answer' in history or that historical facts are unproblematic, does it matter? Should we care? Doug Newton and Lynn...
Knowing what counts in history: historical understanding and the non-specialist teacher
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Recorded webinar: History teachers as teachers of reading
Developing confident readers and writers in the history classroom and beyond
Students and teachers can perceive literacy, particularly the challenges of extended reading and writing, to be a barrier to enjoyment of and success in history. Repeated lockdowns over the past two years have, despite teachers’ most creative and dedicated responses to remote learning, made it even harder to help children...
Recorded webinar: History teachers as teachers of reading
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New, Novice or Nervous? 163: Historical significance
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the no-quick-fix
Historical significance first appeared in England’s National Curriculum for history in 1995. It entered the assessment framework (Level Descriptions) in 2008. In 2014, it became part of the History NC ‘Aims’. One thing never changes, however: it is hard.
But history teachers have written a great deal about historical significance...
New, Novice or Nervous? 163: Historical significance
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Film: Lesson sequences
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
In this latest film in the teaching history for beginners series, Helen Snelson from the University of York explores and unpacks the principles and process of planning across a sequence of lessons to provide a coherent unit of work that builds knowledge and progression in disciplinary thinking.
Film: Lesson sequences
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Film: Formative Assessment
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.
Sally Thorne has been a History teacher since 2003 and is currently Head of History at a secondary school in Bristol. She is also a GCSE examiner, textbook author, conference speaker and SHP adviser. In this short film, Sally unpacks formative assessment.
Film: Formative Assessment
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Recorded webinar: Supporting less able students in your GCSE classroom
History for all series
In this webinar recording aimed primarily at beginning teachers, Sally Burnham looks at practical strategies to help motivate and support our lower attainers in the history classroom, particularly at GCSE. She explores ways to help students develop secure knowledge, recall that knowledge and use the knowledge effectively so that all students can access...
Recorded webinar: Supporting less able students in your GCSE classroom
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Film: Building Subject Knowledge Quickly
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.
As a teacher, you may be teaching topics that you have never studied before. In this episode of the Beginning Teacher webinar series, Laura London, Lecturer in Education on the history PGCE at the University of East Anglia gives advice on...
Film: Building Subject Knowledge Quickly
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New, Novice or Nervous? 156: Analysing interpretations
Teaching History feature
This page 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 in which others...
New, Novice or Nervous? 156: Analysing interpretations
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Cunning Plan 155: interpreting WW1 events
Teaching History feature
Enquiry Question: What's worth knowing about the First World War?
At the end of our scheme of work on the First World War, I asked myself how I might encourage my Year 9 pupils to reflect on the historical significance of the events we had studied. I was particularly interested...
Cunning Plan 155: interpreting WW1 events
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New, Novice or Nervous? 153: Good Enquiry Questions
Teaching History feature
This page 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 in which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 153: Good Enquiry Questions
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New, Novice or Nervous? 151: Getting beyond bad ‘source work'
Teaching History feature
This page 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 in which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 151: Getting beyond bad ‘source work'
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New, Novice or Nervous? 150: Getting pupils to see change over time
Teaching History feature
This page is the starting point for all who are new to the published writings of history teachers. Every problem you wrestle with, other history 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...
New, Novice or Nervous? 150: Getting pupils to see change over time
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Developing effective collaboration between schools and universities
Teaching History article
Sarah Longair launched a collaborative project between school history teachers and university historians in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, Longair and her teacher colleagues, Kerry Milligan and Emma McKenna, share how they used online collaboration to develop a flexible and practical approach to school–university collaboration, and...
Developing effective collaboration between schools and universities
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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? 159: Writing history essays
Teaching History feature
Until the 1990s, it was unusual for the majority of England's secondary school students to write history essays. The traditional essay was a staple of the old History O Level examinations, but fewer than 20% of pupils did these history exams. In the 1980s, various history teachers became increasingly concerned...
New, Novice or Nervous? 159: Writing history essays
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Move Me On 159: Writing Frames
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Hannah Mitchell would like to wean pupils off the use of writing frames.
Hannah Mitchell has embarked on her PGCE training after a year spent working as a Teaching Assistant. Her varied experiences in that role - sometimes working one-to-one with young people, within a targeted intervention programme,...
Move Me On 159: Writing Frames
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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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New, Novice or Nervous? 149: Getting pupils to argue about causes
Teaching History feature
Every problem you're wrestling with in the history classroom, other history teachers have wrestled with too. This page is for all those new to the published writings of history teachers in Teaching History. It shows how to make a start in understanding how others have explored and discussed common and...
New, Novice or Nervous? 149: Getting pupils to argue about causes
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Move Me On 147: Making Analogies Meaningful
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Emma Norman finds the analogies that she's using to make historical ideas meaningful end up distracting or confusing the students.
Emma has come into history teaching after a number of years at home looking after children. Her previous work was as a fundraiser for an environmental campaign group,...
Move Me On 147: Making Analogies Meaningful
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Film: Teaching history for beginners... Becoming a reflective practitioner
Webinar
Welcome to our filmed webinar series Teaching History For Beginners. This series is designed to support beginning history teachers and can be used by mentors or SCITTs with new history teachers in training or by beginning teachers eager to get ahead. Each webinar, presented by experienced history ITE tutors, lecturers and mentors...
Film: Teaching history for beginners... Becoming a reflective practitioner
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Film: Teaching history for beginners... Disciplinary concepts
Webinar
Welcome to our filmed webinar series Teaching History For Beginners. This series is designed to support beginning history teachers and can be used by mentors or SCITTs with new history teachers in training or by beginning teachers eager to get ahead. Each webinar, presented by experienced history ITE tutors, lecturers and...
Film: Teaching history for beginners... Disciplinary concepts
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Making rigour a departmental reality
Teaching History article
Faced with the introduction of a two-year key stage and a new whole-school assessment policy, Rachel Arscott and Tom Hinks decided to make a virtue out of necessity and reconsider their whole approach to planning, teaching and assessment at Key Stage 3. In this article they give an account of...
Making rigour a departmental reality
