How is your history club doing?

Thanks to Sally Burnham, HA and SHP Fellow and history teacher at Carres School in Lincolnshire for this blogpost. This post is packed full of great ideas for History Club activities across all year groups. In September we decided that we wanted to give History Club an ‘update’. During Covid it was many of the ‘nicer’ things of school life that had been put on … Continue reading How is your history club doing?

Corners of foreign fields: ideas for making meaning and memory on a Battlefields Trips

Thanks to Hugh Richards, Head of History at Huntington School in York and leader of the HA’s Subject Leader Development Programme, for this blogpost. Hugh is a leading thinker about how to make history memorable and meaningful for young people, and he has a lot of experience in organising Battlefields Trips. Hopefully you will be inspired to get (back) to the Battlefields. This blog explains … Continue reading Corners of foreign fields: ideas for making meaning and memory on a Battlefields Trips

Cracking the Enigma: a new approach to teaching ALL of World War Two

Thanks to David Bailey, a history teacher at Jerudong International School, Brunei, for this blogpost. David, and his departmental colleagues, have been rethinking their approach to teaching World War Two. He hopes to start a conversation about this. Please get in touch with your ideas and think about contributing a blogpost about how you have wrestled with this issue. How do you tackle World War … Continue reading Cracking the Enigma: a new approach to teaching ALL of World War Two

Introducing South Asian Heritage Month

Thanks to Sharon Aninakwa, member of HA Secondary Committee and Head of History at St Claudine’s Catholic School for Girls, for this blogpost inviting us to to engage with South Asian Heritage month next term. Sharon provides context, reasons why we should engage, and practical support to do so. In the history teaching community we are blessed to be able to bridge the gap between … Continue reading Introducing South Asian Heritage Month

Where do marks on KS3 assessments come from?

Thanks to Martyn Bajkowski, Head of History at Pleckgate School and member of Secondary Committee, for sharing work on assessment at Key Stage 3. Martyn shares how his department have read, thought and discussed their way to a manageable system that is focused on secure historical learning. Pupils find it engaging and it is providing the department with useful data to use to work on … Continue reading Where do marks on KS3 assessments come from?

Literacy and Oracy in History – a new HA CPD guide

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

Saints and lice- unravelling the medieval past

Jessie Phillips, History Teacher at Sawston Village College, shares work that relates to cultural history/perspective but with a particular focus on the medieval. Her overarching ideas are based on Wineburg’s conception of finding the ‘familiar within the strange’ and the ‘strange within the familiar’ and using this approach she unravels the attitudes, ideas and values of people in the past. She also explores (very carefully) … Continue reading Saints and lice- unravelling the medieval past

Local history of the Holocaust as a ‘way in’ to broader narratives … and more

In this blogpost Andy Lawrence, Head of History at Hampton School, shares work his department have done that reveals the benefits of researching a local connection to the Holocaust. Not only has it helped integrate local history throughout KS3, it has also provided a ‘way in’ to broader narratives. By engaging the students in the research, some forgotten voices have been ‘heard’. The title of … Continue reading Local history of the Holocaust as a ‘way in’ to broader narratives … and more

1381 HATF: co-planning across distance

In this blogpost HATF People of 1381 participants, Andrew Sweet (@AndrewSweet4) and Rachel Wilson (@rachelswilson91), share the first part of their work relating to the Fellowship. Their school settings and students are very different, but their aims and curricular intentions are similar, they have planning autonomy and are able to plan with their own students learning needs as a priority. Their model for co-planning is … Continue reading 1381 HATF: co-planning across distance

The return to formal assessment at KS3

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