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International relations at GCSE... they just can't get enough of it
Teaching History article
There is no reason why pupils of so-called ‘average’ and ‘below-average ability’ cannot both understand and enjoy studying complicated international events. Indeed, in the interests of inclusion and raised standards, it is vital that they do. Our Letters Pages in the last two editions captured something of the history teaching...
International relations at GCSE... they just can't get enough of it
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Rethinking progression in historical interpretations through the British Empire
Teaching History article
Let’s stop saying sorry for the Empire! Thus Mastin and Wallace introduce one of their lessons on interpretations of the British Empire. They develop Gary Howells’s ideas from the previous edition of Teaching History to demonstrate exactly what we might get our students to do with interpretations of the past....
Rethinking progression in historical interpretations through the British Empire
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Sense, relationship and power: uncommon views of place
Teaching History article
Liz Taylor invites history teachers to consider how diverse and uncommon the ‘common’ person’s experience of place might be. She draws upon cultural geography to show how words like ‘place’, ‘space’ and ‘landscape’ can be unpacked and questioned and so become better tools for pupils’ critical thinking in both geography...
Sense, relationship and power: uncommon views of place
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Challenging not balancing: developing Year 7's grasp of historical argument through online discussion and a virtual book
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article is about using story to construct a learning journey for a Year 7 class. It reports an innovative use of a virtual learning environment to construct a narrative e-book into which argument tasks...
Challenging not balancing: developing Year 7's grasp of historical argument through online discussion and a virtual book
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Move Me On 93: Not making progress in use of ICT
The problem page for history mentors
Millie Marvel, PGCE Student is not making use of ICT to teach history in the classroom
Problem:
Millie Marvel, student history teacher, is in Term 2 of her PGCE year. She enjoys using ICT and is highly competent in her use of several applications. However, lessons in which she has chosen...
Move Me On 93: Not making progress in use of ICT
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A need to know: Islamic history and the school curriculum
Teaching History article
In this article, Nicolas Kinloch questions some of the principal justifications often advanced for teaching Islamic history in schools. In particular, he wants to move us beyond our concern with current events in the Middle East. He suggests that there are dangers in looking at Islamic history if it is...
A need to know: Islamic history and the school curriculum
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Teaching the history of women in Europe in the twentieth-century
Teaching History article
This article is based on Ruth Tudor’s book. The book is the collaborative result of a series of seminars and discussions which involved educators throughout Europe. Written with 14-19 year olds in mind, the approach explores how it is possible to investigate, to exploit to provide new insights and to...
Teaching the history of women in Europe in the twentieth-century
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Breaking the 20 year rule: very modern history at GCSE
Teaching History article
History is the study of the past; some of the past is more recent than a glance over many schemes of work might lead us to think. Chris Culpin makes the case for ignoring the 20 year rule and tackling head on – and, crucially, historically – the big issues...
Breaking the 20 year rule: very modern history at GCSE
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Learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century
Teaching History article
In the first of our special, extra ‘Europages’, funded by the Council of Europe (CoE), Mark McLaughlin briefly outlines the purpose and outcomes of a CoE project on ‘learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century’. His short article reminds all history teachers of the need...
Learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century
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How can I improve my use of ICT? Put history first!
Teaching History article
What is the difference between using lots of ICT and using it well? Dave Atkin draws upon work in his own department and with other Gloucestershire teachers in order to identify criteria for effective ICT use. These boil down to ‘putting history first' and getting maximum value out of the...
How can I improve my use of ICT? Put history first!
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Triumphs Show 127: using the Anne Frank House's 'A Family Secret'
Teaching History feature: celebrating and sharing success
The Anne Frank House recently translated its comic book A Family Secret into English. By stressing the choices and dilemmas of ordinary people living in Amsterdam during the German Occupation, the comic seeks to revise the black and white ideas students hold of right and wrong. With five other history...
Triumphs Show 127: using the Anne Frank House's 'A Family Secret'
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Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the last edition of Teaching History, Maria Osowiecki described in detail the fourth lesson in a five-lesson enquiry entitled: What was remarkable about the Renaissance? She also shared her resources for two lively, interactive...
Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
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You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed:' Teaching history hurts
Teaching History article
As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...
You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed:' Teaching history hurts
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'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
Teaching History article
In this article, Helena Stride shows how the Imperial War Museum responded to criticism that insufficient attention had been paid to the contribution of black and Asian people to Britain’s wars. She focuses on one of two resource-packs produced by the Museum, which highlights the experience of Britain’s colonial peoples,...
'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
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Transforming Year 7's understanding of the concept of Imperialism: a case study on the Roman Empire
Teaching History article
Those of us in the U.K. know that many of our pupils finish their entire historical education without a satisfactory grasp of basic substantive concepts as they are used in history. Do all our low-attaining or ‘low ability’ 14-year-olds who are pressured to drop history at 14 really emerge with...
Transforming Year 7's understanding of the concept of Imperialism: a case study on the Roman Empire
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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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Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
Article
Mike Murray analyses the way in which curriculum development has broadened and strengthened our conceptions of high standards in historical learning for school students. He pays tribute to ground-breaking new theoretical principles from the Schools History Project and from new emphases upon contextual knowledge and ‘interpretations' in the first National...
Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
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How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
Teaching History article
School trips are, it seems, always in the news. They are under threat, or vital, or the preserve of wealthier students, or a forum for poor behaviour, or a day out of the classroom to build relationships, or a fantastic learning experience where students learn important life skills (such as...
How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
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Historical significance - the forgotten 'Key Element'?
Teaching History article
How many history departments regularly discuss the quality of their enquiries and teaching processes that relate to historical significance? It would not be unusual, in 2002, for a history department to spend time in a department meeting reflecting upon pupils’ learning about causation or to explore the connection between pupils’...
Historical significance - the forgotten 'Key Element'?
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Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
Teaching History article
Historians and history teachers understand well that students, when they ‘answer’ questions, are creating their own interpretation. We take account of this in our teaching too: we do not pretend that, beyond the level of the simplest closed questioning, there is ever a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer approach to history....
Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
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Polychronicon 169: Herodotus
Journal article
You can buy a cheap flight to Bodrum (south-west Turkey), now a popular package holiday tourist destination and in antiquity named Halicarnassus, and visit ancient Greek temples and a theatre dating back more than 2,000 years. In Bodrum’s incomparable Underwater Archaeology Museum, you can admire the extraordinary Phoenician, Carian, Cypriot,...
Polychronicon 169: Herodotus
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'Really weird and freaky': using a Thomas Hardy short story as a source of evidence in the Year 8 classroom
Teaching History article
Can 25 so-called ‘low ability’ girls access 30 pages of difficult text? Yes, much more easily they can access the tiny, sanitised, made-easy ‘gobbets’ that they are normally exposed to in the name of ‘access’. Mary Woolley makes the point that boring texts are those that tell you only essential...
'Really weird and freaky': using a Thomas Hardy short story as a source of evidence in the Year 8 classroom
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Cunning Plan 100: teaching the First World War in Year 9
Teaching History feature
History teacher and head of department stand outside noisy Year 9 class. Bombs (paper ones) fly everywhere; in corner of room mutiny is being discussed ... many pupils are refusing to follow their leader's last minute orders - they will not be opting for history! The war of attrition (excessive...
Cunning Plan 100: teaching the First World War in Year 9
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'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'
Teaching History article
How can the Holocaust be represented? In this article, Andrew Wrenn takes as his example the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He helps teachers encourage pupils to get beneath the surface, and look analytically at the Museum itself as an interpretation of the Holocaust. Such an investigation provides pupils and...
'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'
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JFK: the medium, the message and the myth
Teaching History article
Dale Banham and Russell Hall present a multi-faceted rationale for an in-depth study of the 1991 film, JFK. They treat it as an ‘interpretation’ in the National Curriculum sense, constructing a varied and meticulous learning journey towards its analysis. By the end of that journey pupils had examined the central...
JFK: the medium, the message and the myth
