4 reasons why your Headteacher should buy you an HA Corporate Membership
Simon Harrison, Headteacher of Crofton School in Hampshire and member of HA Secondary Committee, provides anyone who needs them with arguments to present to senior leadership as to why your history department needs HA Corporate Membership. From history teacher to Headteacher, in over 25 years of teaching I have filled most school roles; history teacher, in the ‘middle’ as a subject leader, an Advanced Skills … Continue reading 4 reasons why your Headteacher should buy you an HA Corporate Membership
Using archives to enthuse and engage
Thanks to Anne Hooper, member of HA Secondary Committee, for this article explaining how her department refreshed their GCSE course by delving into the archives. Anne explains how using full texts with original images really engages students and helps develop their evidential understanding. She generously shares the resources at the end. Using archive sources is not new to us as history teachers but sometimes it’s … Continue reading Using archives to enthuse and engage
Bringing facts into the classroom through fiction
Thanks to Martyn Bajkowski, Head of History at Pleckgate High School and member of HA Secondary Committee for this blogpost. He encourages us to remember the joy of history and to use historical fiction to encourage our students. As someone with a surname that translates as ‘The son of a story teller’ it may not surprise you to learn that I love using stories in … Continue reading Bringing facts into the classroom through fiction
It is time to update our Remembrance assemblies
Secondary Committee member Gemma Hargraves challenges us to think about Remembrance-tide afresh, to make it resonant for our pupils and to use stories of the past to support their knowledge of the people of today. Every year schools deliver Remembrance assemblies. Perhaps it’s the Headteacher, perhaps it’s the job of the History department. This time last year I wrote for One Big History Department about … Continue reading It is time to update our Remembrance assemblies
Empire blogpost 2: visualising Empire a bit differently
Thanks to Richard Kennett, Assistant Headteacher at Gatehouse Green Trust in Bristol, HA Fellow and member of Secondary Committee, for this second post in his series about Empire. In my last blog I tried to suggest some practical ways to improve our teaching of Empire by focusing on asking different questions about Empire. In this blog I would like to continue with the same theme … Continue reading Empire blogpost 2: visualising Empire a bit differently
A Medieval Holiday
We are delighted to feature a blogpost from an A Level student that offers an insight into history learning beyond the classroom and how it raises achievement… While 2021 saw other people spending their ‘staycation’ at campsites or British beaches, one pupil spent several weekends camping inside a castle and on a battlefield! Melissa started doing Living History events in 2019, as part of the … Continue reading A Medieval Holiday
Poles in Britain: new, free teaching resources!
This blogpost from Helen Snelson (@Snelsonh), PGCE History Curriculum Area Leader at the University of York and Chair of HA Secondary Committee, introduces some new, free resources to support teaching about Poland and Poles in Britain in history lessons and beyond. I know it is really tough to find space and time for yet another topic, but stay with me while I introduce some new, … Continue reading Poles in Britain: new, free teaching resources!
Early Career History Teacher: knowledge audit
This blogpost is primarily for colleagues in their first year of teaching history and for their mentors supporting them, but it might well be useful for other colleagues too! The Early Career Framework (ECF) has now been rolled out nationally. It has been designed to support continuing professional development. As colleagues working with the ECF know, it identifies five core areas of development: behaviour management, … Continue reading Early Career History Teacher: knowledge audit
See the sites: how to get more of the historic environment into your classroom.
Thanks to Hugh Richards, Head of History at Huntington School in York and member of Secondary Committee for this blogpost! What do I mean by the ‘Historic Environment?’ At Huntington, we do the OCR B (SHP) GCSE. This includes our choice of historic environment, known as History Around Us, for which we teach a sequence of enquiries that totals about 20 lessons. This has … Continue reading See the sites: how to get more of the historic environment into your classroom.
Empire blogpost 1: asking different questions about Empire
This blogpost is the first in a series written by Richard Kennett. He is a member of HA Secondary Committee, assistant headteacher in Bristol and co-author of the new MShed published book: “Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery”. Like many of you I have been thinking a lot about how we teach the British Empire this year. The Black Lives Matter protests and reflections that followed it … Continue reading Empire blogpost 1: asking different questions about Empire
OBHD 