In December 2018 our school was approached to take part in a pilot for Ofsted’s new framework from September 2019. This was not an official trial of the whole framework (the focus was the subject-specific curriculum in 2 subjects) and therefore has no official status. We received no judgements or written feedback. The following reflections are merely our own personal reflections on our experience. We … Continue reading Reflections on our Ofsted pilot
Perhaps you have Polish students in your history classroom and are worried their homeland only appears in history lessons when invaded by the Nazis and the USSR? Perhaps you want your students to realise that links with other countries go back a lot further than some current political voices might suggest? Probably you are very pushed for time! Have you seen? projectpolish.com This Schools Project … Continue reading Polish students, Polish connections, Polish history, strong communities…
In this blogpost, Richard Kennett shares his department’s work to focus on core knowledge at A level. The approach could be applied at other levels. This sort of curriculum conversation leading to development is what we want to share on #OBHD. Please share your work too and meanwhile follow @histassoc and find more support via www.history.org.uk The problem of a lack of A* grades Last … Continue reading How specifying the knowledge has really helped all our learners
Richard Kennett writes… Helen Snelson and I have just returned from the annual EUROCLIO conference in Gdansk. If you don’t know, EUROCLIO is the umbrella organisation for all the national organisations of history teachers across the continent; the HA is a member. There were over 150 history teachers from a huge variety of countries with us in Poland. It was an ace weekend working with colleagues … Continue reading Personal reflections on the EUROCLIO conference… let’s learn the lesson from our European colleagues!
Some colleagues are fortunate to work in schools where there is strong senior management support for the teaching of history, in departments where there is a long history of high-quality leadership and teaching, and are able to feel confident about curriclum planning for the new Ofsted, teaching and learning to meet the needs of every child and the constant demands of subject knowledge updating. Many … Continue reading History teachers’ sources of support – part 1 – history SLEs
Jen Thornton, Head of History at Loreto Grammar School, shares her solution to teaching ‘the big picture’. She describes her approach and then shares her scripts with us so everyone can use them. Onebighistorydepartment! As an NQT back in 2006, I was blessed to work with a brilliant History department, and there is one thing I took away from that year which is still a … Continue reading Acting out the BIG PICTURE: using geeky scripted role plays at GCSE and A Level
In this post Jason Todd, PGCE Tutor at Oxford University and member of Secondary Committee, gives really helpful advice about how to make your teaching of World War One less limited to the Western Front, and therefore more accurate and respectful to the past, without rewriting everything you do and adding much time to the teaching of the topic… I recently had the privilege of … Continue reading Maps to make WW1 a truly WORLD war
The Historical Association Secondary Committee have put together this HA_Historical_Fiction_list for people to use with their students. It is designed to help history teachers to inspire students of all ages in secondary school to read historical fiction for pleasure and also to get better at doing history. Please share it! Historical fiction works very powerfully to help some people do even better at history, including … Continue reading FREE – Historical Fiction list from the HA
Continuing our efforts to share really good resources being provided free for teachers and their students, this post is to draw your attention to historiana.eu EUROCLIO, the European Network of History Educators of which the Historical Association is a member, is making available resources on World War One, the Versailles Treaty, the inter-war years, World War Two and the Cold War. These should be really useful … Continue reading Free high-quality resources for teaching WW1, inter-war years, WW2 and the Cold War…
Continuing our theme of bringing sources of good quality resoures to the OBHD community, this post features www.thinkinghistory.co.uk. It is a site where the key word is ‘respect’. Respect for people of the past acting without the benefit of hindsight and respect for voices that may not always be heard. Almost everything on it has been created and maintained by former SHP Director Ian Dawson, known … Continue reading In case you’d forgotten about thinkinghistory.co.uk …
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