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Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
Teaching History article
As historians, we are dependent on evidence, which comes in many varieties. Rosalind Stirzaker here introduces a project which she ran two years ago to encourage her students to think about artefacts in a different way. They have examined randomly preserved artefacts such as those of Pompeii, and sets of...
Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
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Why are you wearing a watch? Complicating narratives of economic and social progress
Teaching History article
Frustrated by the traditional narrative of the industrial revolution as a steady march of progress, and disappointed by her students’ dull and deterministic statements about historical change, Hannah Sibona decided to complicate the tidy narrative of continual improvement.
Inspired by an article by E.P. Thompson, Sibona reflected that introducing her...
Why are you wearing a watch? Complicating narratives of economic and social progress
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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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England Arise! The General Election of 1945
Historian article
‘The past week will live in history for two things’, announced the Sunday Times of 29 July 1945, ‘first the return of a Labour majority to Parliament and the end of Churchill's great war Premiership.’ Most other newspapers concurred. The Daily Mirror, of 27 July, proclaimed that the 1945 general election...
England Arise! The General Election of 1945
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Thinking of teaching?
Multipage Article
Routes into teaching
Although there are now hundreds of training providers and different courses from which to choose, an awareness of some basic distinctions can help enormously in deciding what type of programme you want to follow, and clarifying your options. One essential distinction is between fee-paying programmes, on which...
Thinking of teaching?
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Young Historian Awards 2021 – Winners
Annual competition, HA and The Spirit of Normandy Trust
Each year the Historical Association partners with The Spirit of Normandy Trust to award young historians who have shown excellent knowledge and demonstrated historical argument around a subject associated with a series of themes. The competition is divided into age brackets and the entry at secondary level is by essay...
Young Historian Awards 2021 – Winners
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Saint Robert and the Deer
Article
It is almost a commonplace that there is an affinity between a holy man and the creatures of the wild. The archetype is St. Francis of Assisi but the phenomenon was well marked both before and after his time. I would like to consider briefly an episode in the life...
Saint Robert and the Deer
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Young Quills winners 2020
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction
6-9 years category:
The Closest Thing to FlyingBy Gill Lewis, Oxford University Press
10-13 years category:
Our Castle by the SeaBy Lucy Strange, Chicken House
14 years + category:
The Stolen OnesBy Vanessa Curtis, Usborne Publishing
Highly commended:
6-9 years category:
Winter of the Wolves By Tony Bradman, Bloomsbury
10-13...
Young Quills winners 2020
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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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Terms and Conditions
Subject Leader Development Programme/History Teacher Development Programme
Please read the terms and conditions carefully before you register for a place on the programme. Please also refer to the CPD Events terms and conditions
The Subject Leader Development Programme (SLDP)/History Teacher Development Programme (HTDP) is open to all secondary history educators in a variety of settings and circumstances, including...
Terms and Conditions
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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
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Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
Teaching History article
Jim Carroll noticed basic literacy errors in his Year 13s’ writing, but on closer examination decided that these were not best addressed purely as literacy issues. Through an intervention based on clauses, Carroll managed to enable his students to write better, but he did this by teasing out principles of...
Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
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CARGO Classroom: digital resources for diverse histories
Visionary leaders of African and African Diaspora descent
To address the urgent need for digital learning resources, and to address the imbalance of perspectives in the History curriculum, CARGO Classroom is now providing multimedia learning tools for Key Stage 3 History via a freely accessible, interactive website: cargomovement.org/classroom
“CARGO is about doing. We talk a lot. We talk about...
CARGO Classroom: digital resources for diverse histories
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Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
Podcast Series
Controversial History formed the focus of the Historical Association’s report, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19 (TEACH). Published in 2007, it offered teachers invaluable guidance for teaching historical topics that can stir emotion and controversy. However, the authors noted how the nature of the sensitivity can be affected by ‘time, geography and...
Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
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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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The knowledge illusion
Teaching History article
Focusing on students’ attempts to explain the relative significance of different factors in Hitler’s rise to power, Catherine McCrory explores the vexed question of why students who seem able to express necessary historical knowledge on one occasion cannot effectively reproduce it on another. Drawing on a detailed analysis of what...
The knowledge illusion
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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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Young Historian Awards 2020 – Winners
Annual competition, HA and The Spirit of Normandy Trust
Each year the Historical Association partners with The Spirit of Normandy Trust to award young historians who have shown excellent knowledge and demonstrated historical argument around a subject associated with a series of themes. The competition is divided into age brackets and the entry at secondary level is by essay...
Young Historian Awards 2020 – Winners
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction 2020 – Winners Announced
HA competitions news
This has been one of our best years for entries ever!
With children stuck at home needing a little extra something to do we decided to extend the competition to accommodate home learning, as well as a new age category for pupils in years 10-13. We received well over a...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction 2020 – Winners Announced
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The Sykes-Picot agreement and lines in the sand
Historian article
Paula Kitching reveals how a secret diplomatic negotiation 100 years ago provides an insight into the political complexities of the modern-day Middle East.
The Middle East is an area frequently in the news. Over the last ten years the national and religious tensions appear to have exploded with whole regions...
The Sykes-Picot agreement and lines in the sand
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No puzzle, no learning: how to make your site visits rigorous, fascinating and indispensable
Teaching History article
Chris Culpin builds on recent articles by Andrew Wrenn and Mike Murray with numerous practical ideas for good quality site visits at Key Stage 3 and GCSE. But this article offers much more than practical tips. Chris Culpin sets out a rationale for the centrality of site visits in the...
No puzzle, no learning: how to make your site visits rigorous, fascinating and indispensable
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Resource sharing hub for home learning
2nd April 2020
We know how hard life has been for teachers and schools in recent weeks. Materials have had to be put online hastily to provide students with home learning activities in the light of a fast-moving situation. At present, there is little indication as to how long schools will remain closed...
Resource sharing hub for home learning
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Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy
Podcast
This podcast feature Professor Mark Philp of the University of Warwick discussing how people's perceptions of democracy changed between 1750 and 1850 and is based on the findings of the Re-imagining democracy project, begun in 2005 by Joanna Innes and Mark Philp.
Re-imagining Democracy: 1750-1850
1. Introduction. Democracy from negative...
Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy
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Engaging Year 9 students in party politics
Teaching History article
Sarah Black wanted to remedy Year 9's lack of knowledge about nineteenth-century politics. With just five lessons to work with, she decided to devise a sequence on Gladstone and Disraeli, shaping the sequence with an enquiry question that invited argument about change and continuity. Black analyses the status and function of different layers of knowledge within her sequence, evaluates the interaction...
Engaging Year 9 students in party politics
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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
