Pearls of Wisdom from Teaching History 120

Continuing our series of looking back to a past edition of Teaching History, Secondary Committee member Emma Bevan has returned to edition 120 from September 2005. Here she gives some thoughts about what she has found there that resonates today.  A rallying cry to be braver in the history classroom When asked “why teach history?”, one of the most recurrent responses is that it allows … Continue reading Pearls of Wisdom from Teaching History 120

Teaching interpretations – maximising potential and avoiding pitfalls!

Thanks to Warren Valentine (@warrenvalentine), head of history and politics at Mayfield Grammar School for Girls, for this blogpost about a day spent thinking about the teaching of historical interpretations. This is an area that has been extensively discussed and theorised about for many years. You can find more help with this tricky concept on the HA website.   In June a collection of history teachers … Continue reading Teaching interpretations – maximising potential and avoiding pitfalls!

Historians: short film clips

There is currently lots of really good practice around the use of historians’ work in classrooms. Last weekend at SHP a few of us were talking about how useful it would be to have a list of short clips of historians in one place. This list has been started and is shared here as a Google-Doc that can be accessed, added to and improved. Google … Continue reading Historians: short film clips

Interpretations – the essential ‘how to’ for history teachers!

Historical interpretations are hard! Students and teachers struggle with the concept. Christine Counsell has been a leading light in thinking about and honing our practice in relation to this concept for many years. She recently posted a summary twitter thread to help newer history teachers to understand what teaching interpretations means and where we have come from. From June 2019 ‘Teaching History’ will have a … Continue reading Interpretations – the essential ‘how to’ for history teachers!

Lists and indices of sources of substantive and disciplinary knowledge

Many superb colleagues have grafted to make life easier for us all by creating lists and indices of many useful resources. This work on behalf of the community saves so much time and is so helpful to newer colleague less ‘au fait’ with the sources old hands use for subject knowledge and also ‘how to teach’ updating. This blogpost is updated regularly and is an … Continue reading Lists and indices of sources of substantive and disciplinary knowledge

Teaching Medieval History? – websites!

There’s no substitute for reading Exploring and Teaching Medieval History – an introduction by Ian Dawson of course. However, knowing how we all need things easily to hand, Henry Walton (@HenryWalton5), Head of Humanities @manorceacademy, has extracted some of the websites and texts it mentions and added others into one handy list. He’s kindly shared it with us… Objects associated with the Conquest: http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/exhibit/iALiB6XML3gmJQ Archaeology: http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ – website with hundreds … Continue reading Teaching Medieval History? – websites!

Later Middle Ages: Teaching Fellowship Resources

Hopefully you have managed to find the free copy of Teaching Medieval History that has been sent to your school. The online expanded version is Here. This has been made available thanks to Agincourt600. In 2015, they also granted the HA funding to start the first of its Teaching Fellowship programmes. A group of teachers spent an intensive weekend updating their subject knowledge with academics. They then … Continue reading Later Middle Ages: Teaching Fellowship Resources