Decolonising Source Analysis and Introducing Sikh Female History to Year 9

Many thanks to Dr Danielle Donaldson, Head of Department, Concord College, Shrewsbury for this blogpost sharing her department’s work to extend the range of sources used in class and to teach the history of Sikh women. The curriculum intent & context We have been working on decolonising and integrating more representative history in our schemes of work at Concord College. Our enquiries are aimed to … Continue reading Decolonising Source Analysis and Introducing Sikh Female History to Year 9

Bringing facts into the classroom through fiction

Thanks to Martyn Bajkowski, Head of History at Pleckgate High School and member of HA Secondary Committee for this blogpost. He encourages us to remember the joy of history and to use historical fiction to encourage our students. As someone with a surname that translates as ‘The son of a story teller’ it may not surprise you to learn that I love using stories in … Continue reading Bringing facts into the classroom through fiction

Empire blogpost 3: the thorny issue of literacy when teaching the British Empire

Thanks to Richard Kennett for continuing his series of blogposts about teaching the British Empire… The difficulty of literacy and the teaching of the British Empire Teaching any historical topic is hard as it requires a lot of disciplinary vocabulary. Those pesky words that enlighten a subject, bring it to life and really allow you to get your teeth in. Revolution, peasant, autocratic, industrial, agricultural, … Continue reading Empire blogpost 3: the thorny issue of literacy when teaching the British Empire

Developing substantive thinking: a project to create connections through a KS3 curriculum

Thank you to Sarah Jackson, Head of History at Sawston Village College in Cambridgeshire, for this blogpost sharing some more of the work of the department… As a department we have often talked about the huge impact that cultural literacy has on the achievement of our pupils. Students who don’t have ‘pictures of the past’ find it hard to understand new content as it doesn’t … Continue reading Developing substantive thinking: a project to create connections through a KS3 curriculum

What do we know? How do we know? What do they say? Knowledge for history teachers and students!

The name Richard Brown is probably unfamiliar to many people reading this blogpost. But Richard taught for many years, was an editor of Teaching History and is a Fellow of both the HA and the RHS. He has been creating websites for many years and the purpose of this blogpost is to make more history teachers aware of them. They are very much worth exploring … Continue reading What do we know? How do we know? What do they say? Knowledge for history teachers and students!

Decolonising the curriculum one step at a time: lessons on race in the early British Empire

In this blogpost, Jen Thornton (@jen_a_thornton), Head of History at Loreto Grammar School, shares her recent work to improve the history curriculum. Jen started by listening to students, she has gone back to the scholarship to gain the knowledge she needs, she has consulted and worked with colleagues, and she is clear that this is work in progress. Her description of this work and her … Continue reading Decolonising the curriculum one step at a time: lessons on race in the early British Empire

Empowering ourselves to create an anti-racist curriculum: picking off the obstacles one book and one conversation at a time

Thank you to Kate Smee, Head of Humanities at Fairfield School in Bristol for this blogpost. Kate encourages us to keep on thinking and planning and doing what we need to do to teach better history, despite Covid-19. Her twitter handle is on the end of her blogpost.  I am going to start by saying this is not a blog with a definitive road map, … Continue reading Empowering ourselves to create an anti-racist curriculum: picking off the obstacles one book and one conversation at a time

Enriching history in a time of Covid

History teachers have pulled off incredible feats since the start of 2021 and are pulling together to get better at helping pupils to get better at history despite the ongoing pandemic disruption. #disthist has been useful for gathering ideas into one place in the twittersphere, the @histassoc remote learning hubs are available and @TMHistoryIcons held a really well-timed distance learning day that was so supportive. … Continue reading Enriching history in a time of Covid

The importance of reading

Thanks to Anne Hooper of Secondary Committee for delving back into those Teaching History archives again. Here she learns more about the very topical matter of reading in the history curriculum from the history teaching past.  In a recent ResearchEd talk Clare Sealy talked passionately about the importance of reading in the curriculum. In recent years we have seen a renaissance regarding the importance of … Continue reading The importance of reading

Reflections on the HA Conference 2020

Thanks to Gemma Hargraves (@History_Girls) for writing here about here takeaways from the HA Conference. The conference sessions will be online until 4th January 2021, so there is still time to catch-up on other sessions once the rush of term is ended. Now is actually a great time to learn We’re all tired, busy adapting to blended learning, and facing various COVID related challenges… but … Continue reading Reflections on the HA Conference 2020