Thanks to Alex Fairlamb (@lamb_heart_tea) of HA Secondary Committee for putting together this reading list for anyone teaching history in schools. It will help us learn, talk and think deeply about why and how we are teacher of reading. Reading is a central part of student learning. We are ALL teachers of literacy and therefore how we explicitly teach reading and use this to develop … Continue reading What to read about reading
Thanks to Liz Stevenson, ECT at St Mary’s Catholic High School in Croydon, for this blogpost in which she shares how she is applying her learning from the HA’s Early Career Development Programme. What did you enjoy most about your PGCE? What do you miss from that time? Perhaps as we start our first ECT year, we focus on building our confidence in the classroom, fostering relationships … Continue reading Calling all history ECTs! Subject specific CPD just for you!
As we near the end of the long autumn term, subject leaders may be starting to think about preparation for INSET time at the start of January. The HA is here to help with a range of CPD guides that SLs can use to structure learning together as a department. You can find the currently available guides here. The most recent guide focuses on literacy … Continue reading Literacy and Oracy in History – a new HA CPD guide
Thanks to Anne Hooper, member of HA Secondary Committee, for modelling how her department has trawled the back issues of Teaching History for curriculum planning support. The ‘vague recollection’ she talks abouts is not there in the minds of new members, but there are always people to ask. For example, a call out on Twitter for ‘anyone know a TH article that can help with…’ … Continue reading Planning help from back issues of Teaching History
Thanks to Hugh Richards, Head of History at Huntington School and course leader of the HA’s Subject Leader Development Programme, for this blogpost. In it Hugh walks us through the process of planning a GCSE History Unit. From that he draws out GCSE planning principles. This blogpost is useful for anyone also planning GCSE units and to discuss in departmental CPD. I have recently planned … Continue reading Curricular implementation at Key Stage 4: Anatomy of a GCSE History Unit.
We are starting the new academic year with a blogpost for beginning teachers. The HA defines ‘beginning teachers’ as colleagues in their training year and up to four years post qualification. Welcome to the profession! Well done on qualifying! Every best wish as you start your first post or move to your second! Thank you to all of the mentors who are supporting beginning history … Continue reading Hello colleagues in training and recently qualified, this is for you and your mentors!
Here, Jessie Phillips, History Teacher at Sawston Village College, takes her thinking about presentism in the history classroom further. She points out that this tendency to interpret the past through present values and concepts is used by historians as a conceptual scaffold. She challenges us to think about how presentism can help pupils make their own meanings out of history. She builds on David Armitage’s … Continue reading Smartphones and Mirrors: using presentisms constructively in the classroom.
Continuing our posts that are primarily for beginning teachers, Kayleigh Bates (@KMB_History), assistant HoD at William Farr CE xcomprehensive School in Lincoln shares an inspiring reflection – a decade on. I thought it would announce itself with bells on and stop me in my tracks. 10 years…I’ve been teaching for 10 years! And 9 of them at my current school. It actually only dawned on me during a … Continue reading Early Career Teacher: a perspective from 10 years on!
This is another blogpost primarily for colleagues at the start of their history teaching careers. Caitlyn Palmer, history PGCE student at the University of York, shares her experience of taking on a project beyond the classroom and how it has supported her developing professional practice. As a History PGCE student training with the University of York, there are certain things that I expected I would … Continue reading Early Career History Teacher: experience beyond the classroom
Richard Kennett (@richkbristol), of Gatehouse Green Trust in Bristol, shares recent rethinking of KS3 assessment in his school in response to recent discussions on history edutwitter. This may be incredibly obvious to many of you but given the number of tweets I keep seeing about assessment I thought I would share what we have been doing and thinking at my school in Bristol. I am … Continue reading The return to formal assessment at KS3
OBHD 