This blog has been written by Elizabeth Carr, Assistant Principal – Curriculum and Subject Lead – Humanities at Avanti Grange Secondary School, Hertfordshire. Elizabeth is presenting at the Conference, which takes place in Newcastle Gateshead on 15-16 May, on the topic of The beats and the buzzing: harnessing the power of reading aloud in an inclusive history classroom. 

The annual Historical Association Conference takes place over a Friday and Saturday in May each year. CPD budgets are always stretched, time out of school is precious, and this year, teachers face an additional unexpected challenge. Although teaching for exam classes is over by 15^th May, the first GCSE History exam this year takes place on that day, leaving some colleagues torn between their own professional development and providing support to their students. So why should you attend the HA Conference, and how can history teachers make that case to line managers and senior leaders?   

The keynote and workshop sessions on offer at the conference are wide-ranging, offering high-quality professional development relevant to any history teacher. Sessions on the Secondary pathway explore curriculum, teaching and assessment across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5, but the Initial Teacher Education pathway may also offer useful content for secondary teachers working with ITTs and ECTs in their department, and the General pathway can provide invaluable subject knowledge development. The range of sessions on offer over two days in a single location offers the opportunity to address multiple professional development objectives all at the same time.   

Consult the programme in relation to your own professional development or appraisal objectives, and in relation to your departmental and school development plans to identify sessions which are demonstrably relevant to your development and to departmental and school priorities. Research reviews by the Wellcome Trust and Teacher Development Trust provide excellent summaries of the evidence to show that subject-specific CPD is vital for developing great subject teaching and successfully implementing whole-school initiatives relating to curriculum, teaching and assessment. 

If, for example, oracy is an area for whole-school development, you might attend Sally Burnham’s workshop on Friday morning. If improving outcomes at GCSE is a key objective – and in what department is it not? – then any workshop is going to contribute in some way, but sessions from Katie Amery and Dale Banham, both on Friday, as well as sessions from Ed Durbin and James Ellis & Jess Brown on Saturday, are of direct relevance. In addition, all the exam boards will be represented and there are sessions led by the teams from Pearson and AQA, so it’s a great opportunity to ask questions and obtain updates from the subject teams regarding GCSE and A-level qualifications, without having to take a separate day out of school to attend training.   

Plus, since the O-word usually carries weight with SLT nervous about a new and unfamiliar framework, don’t forget to mention the rare opportunity to hear directly from Tim Jenner of Ofsted, in his keynote.   

To me, just as valuable as the programme of workshops and keynotes are the informal conversations and networking opportunities that the conference offers. You find yourself sitting alongside and talking to other history teachers in every workshop, as well as during breaks, sharing experiences and finding out how they tackle the shared challenges of history teaching. This inevitably sparks new ideas and leads to exchanges of resources, and even mutual visits to observe great practice. The exhibition is an excellent source of ideas for trips, discounts on resources friendly to ever-stretched budgets, and free stationery!   

Perhaps, despite these attractions, you still feel a duty to provide moral support to your Year 11 students before the Friday morning exam. This is entirely understandable. In an ideal world, your whole department would attend the HA Conference, but in the real world, perhaps there may be someone who doesn’t teach a Year 11 class this year or an opportunity for an ECT to take up an access bursary. Beyond providing a psychological boost to students, the gains to be made on the morning of the exam are marginal to non-existent. It is your hard work over the previous two years – the previous five, in fact – that has prepared them to succeed in the examination room. And with new changes to JCQ regulations, you can’t even see the paper until Monday anyway.   

If you are keen to attend the conference but need to marshal arguments to make a case to SLT, I hope that this blog has helped you to do that. The HA Conference offers an opportunity to look ahead to future cohorts and to gather inspiration and resources and build the networks that will better enable you and your colleagues in school to secure improved outcomes for next year’s students and beyond.  

 

References   

Cordingley P, Greany T, Crisp B et al. (2018) Developing great subject teaching: Rapid evidence review of subject-specific continuing professional development in the UK. Wellcome Trust. Available at: wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/developing-great-subject-teaching.pdf   

Cordingley P, Higgins S, Greany T et al. (2015) Developing great teaching: Lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development. Teacher Development Trust. Available at: tdtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DGT-Full-report.pdf