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What’s The Wisdom On... Similarity and difference?
Teaching History feature
How often have you found yourself challenging a pupil’s use of ‘they’ or ‘people’? How often have you teased them with, ‘Really? All of them?!’ Every time we do this, we are pushing our pupils to respect the complexity of the past. We are pressing them to use their knowledge...
What’s The Wisdom On... Similarity and difference?
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Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Diana Laffin shares her findings on an action research project into the use of remote voting systems in the AS and A2 classroom. She was particularly interested in examining the impact of such devices on...
Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Anti-alienism in Britain c.1880–1925
Teaching History feature
The Aliens Acts, passed between 1905 and 1925, marked a significant development in the history of controls on migrants in Britain. Analysing this legislation and the social realities of how it affected migrant communities allows students and educators to reveal insights into histories of migration.
It has been suggested that...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Anti-alienism in Britain c.1880–1925
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Nutshell
Article
What’s this ‘historical significance’ in the new Key Stage 3 Programme of Study? The damn thing has even crept into the Attainment Target. Does this mean I’ve actually got to teach it? Ah! It’s caught up with you at last. Or, rather, the 2008 National Curriculum has caught up with...
Nutshell
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Of the many significant things that have ever happened, what should we teach?
Teaching History article
There are three basic strands to our lessons. How should we teach? What skills should we enable our students to build? What content should we use to deliver those skills?
In this article Tony McConnell, who has been re-designing the curriculum in his school in response to a changed examination regimen, considers the issue of subject...
Of the many significant things that have ever happened, what should we teach?
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Triumphs Show: Embracing scholarship to guide Year 7 on an exploration of the Silk Roads
Teaching History feature
It has been the same for history teachers all over the country: the dramatic shift in perspective after reading Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads. Frankopan’s groundbreaking scholarship transported me to distant lands. His book introduced me to cultures and civilisations previously unknown. I wanted my pupils to venture along the same...
Triumphs Show: Embracing scholarship to guide Year 7 on an exploration of the Silk Roads
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CPD: Beyond the Ballot and Peterloo to the Pankhursts MOOCs
Secondary CPD from Royal Holloway, UK Parliament and People’s History Museum
Explore the history of the struggle for women’s suffrage and equality with this course developed by Royal Holloway, University of London, and the UK Parliament. With content from the Parliamentary Archives, the Women’s Library collection at the LSE Library and The National Archives; engaging videos, articles and quizzes; and a...
CPD: Beyond the Ballot and Peterloo to the Pankhursts MOOCs
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Recorded webinar: Survive and thrive in your initial teacher education
Article
In this open-access recorded webinar you’ll hear from teacher educators with advice and guidance to help you to make plans and get the most out of your history teacher training, whichever route you are taking.
Recorded webinar: Survive and thrive in your initial teacher education
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Confronting otherness: developing scrutiny and inference skills through drawing
Teaching History article
There are two main reasons why it is important for history teachers to make sense of the art teacher's processes, aims and perspectives: first, if we are concerned to improve pupils' historical knowledge and understanding then we will want to know about how learning in other subjects impacts upon it...
Confronting otherness: developing scrutiny and inference skills through drawing
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Magna Carta Enquiry: free lesson sequence
Magna Carta Scheme of Work
The following sequence of lessons is designed to build on pupils' existing knowledge and understanding of the medieval period. In particular it is assumed that pupils will already have an outline knowledge of the main features of medieval kingship and how monarchs exercised their power.
In determining the focus for...
Magna Carta Enquiry: free lesson sequence
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Triumphs Show: Year 9 explore what permacrisis might have felt like in 1938
Teaching History feature
In April 2023, I attended an event at the University of Sheffield with my colleague, Katy Dixon, and a handful of our Year 10 historians. The event showcased the work of Professor Julie V. Gottlieb and playwright Nicola Baldwin who had written a play about the writer and critic of...
Triumphs Show: Year 9 explore what permacrisis might have felt like in 1938
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Move Me On 178: trainee sees all observation as assessment
The problem page for history mentors
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 178: trainee sees all observation as assessment
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Year 9 use a 'road map' to problematise change and continuity
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Rachel Foster, a trainee teacher on teaching placement in November of her PGCE year, wanted her Year 9 pupils to understand the complexity of historical change. She also wanted them to find the difficult challenge...
Year 9 use a 'road map' to problematise change and continuity
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Teach First
Routes into teaching
Teach First’s vision is that no child’s educational success should be limited by their socio-economic background and it places highly motivated graduates in schools in areas of greatest need.
Teach First differs from other routes into teaching in a number of ways. It describes itself as a ‘two-year leadership development...
Teach First
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Year 7 pupils collaboratively design an historical game about a medieval peasant
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Jacques Haenen and Hanneke Tuithof describe an activity that they developed for pupils as part of an initial teacher education course. Teams of Year 7 pupils were given a structure and guidelines within which they...
Year 7 pupils collaboratively design an historical game about a medieval peasant
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Move Me On 131: Mentor struggling to help trainee learn to plan independently
Teaching History feature
Richard Baxter's mentor is struggling to know how to help him plan independently.
Richard Baxter is a relatively young trainee with a background in ancient history. He came to the PGCE course straight after completing his undergraduate degree, and is aware of his relative youth as well as what he...
Move Me On 131: Mentor struggling to help trainee learn to plan independently
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1066 and all what?
Article
Over dinner on 14 October a friend challenged me: ‘You’re a history teacher. How come everyone knows about the Battle of Hastings? There must have been loads of battles. Why that one?’ The year 1066 had an iconic role in English historical thought long before Sellar and Yeatman immortalised it...
1066 and all what?
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Pedagogy, politics and the profession
Teaching History article
History curriculum reform proposals and debates are a persistent feature of the contemporary educational landscape in England and, very probably, a ‘sign of the times' that can reveal a great deal about contemporary predicaments and concerns. History curriculum controversy is also a global phenomenon and one that can fruitfully -and,...
Pedagogy, politics and the profession
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Stepping into the past: using images to travel through time
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Pupils are eternally curious about their teachers. Do they really have lives outside the classroom? Could Miss Jones have once been a child? Does she have parents and grandparents and a past of her own?...
Stepping into the past: using images to travel through time
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Move Me On 176: worried about how to deal with his own dyslexia in the classroom
The problem page for history mentors
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 176: worried about how to deal with his own dyslexia in the classroom
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Move Me On 189: engendering students' curiosity
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 189: engendering students' curiosity
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Virtual Branch Recording: Henry III and Simon de Montfort
Article
David Carpenter brings to life the dramatic events in the last phase of Henry III’s momentous reign, provides a fresh account of the king’s strenuous efforts to recover power and sheds new light on the rebel figure Simon de Montfort.
Professor David Carpenter is a Professor of Medieval History at King's College...
Virtual Branch Recording: Henry III and Simon de Montfort
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Learning from a pandemic
Teaching History article
In order to contextualise and make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic, Verity Morgan worked with her school’s long-standing partner school in Ghana to devise an innovative project combining history and science, past and present. In this article, Morgan sets out the rationale for the project, her detailed adaptation of a British Council...
Learning from a pandemic
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Sudan Holy Mountain: Jebel Barkal and its Temples
Guide Book
This guide book was produced by Timothy Kendall and El-Hassan Ahmed Mohamed (Co-Directors NCAM Archaeological Mission at Jebel Barkal) and has been published on our website by their kind permission (© 2022 Timothy Kendall and El-Hassan Ahmed Mohamed) to support our podcast that examines the history of Ancient Nubia and the Kushite...
Sudan Holy Mountain: Jebel Barkal and its Temples
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Triumphs Show 123: Making sources fun
Teaching History feature
One of the biggest challenges which any history teacher faces is how to make sources fun! Source work does struggles in terms of pupil excitement, understanding and motivation when pitted against the roleplays, dramas and debates. As a history teacher, I am constantly looking for fresh and novel ways to...
Triumphs Show 123: Making sources fun
