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

A Medieval Holiday

We are delighted to feature a blogpost from an A Level student that offers an insight into history learning beyond the classroom and how it raises achievement… While 2021 saw other people spending their ‘staycation’ at campsites or British beaches, one pupil spent several weekends camping inside a castle and on a battlefield! Melissa started doing Living History events in 2019, as part of the … Continue reading A Medieval Holiday

Why should we teach medieval women?

Thanks to PGCE students Dhwani Patel & Georgia Cairns for this blogpost. They model drawing upon the history community’s ‘hive mind’ to develop their own thinking about why we should teach about medieval women and to develop some first thoughts about a teaching sequence. In this instance they did this within the context of their PGCE, but the approach could equally be adopted, in adapted … Continue reading Why should we teach medieval women?

How undertaking a Teacher Fellowship could change your life – in teaching, at least!

Thanks to Louisa Dunn, Head of History, Westcliff High School for Girls, for writing this blogpost. She’s at @LouisaKDee (and says… “not that I am very active, but I am happy for people to contact me with questions etc.”) A new Historical Association Teacher Fellowship has just been announced on the Korean War and applications are open now .  I was lucky enough to be part … Continue reading How undertaking a Teacher Fellowship could change your life – in teaching, at least!

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!

Fixed ideas about teaching the Feudal System? Time to change!

The Norman Conquest marked the start of a new long evolutionary process. Those living in The Middle Ages were sophisticated people. It was a time of building. Building not just in the sense of undertaking the construction of magnificent cathedrals and impregnable castles made from stone, but building ways of organising life, faith, government and society. If it’s time to refresh your teaching and build … Continue reading Fixed ideas about teaching the Feudal System? Time to change!

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

Exploring and Teaching Medieval History – an introduction by Ian Dawson

Exploring and Teaching Medieval History has just been published by the Historical Association. A copy of the shorter, 96 pages edition has been sent to every secondary school in England and Wales. The extended 140 pages edition is available open-access on the HA website – http://www.history.org.uk Where did this publication come from? In summer 2017 the Agincourt600 organisation gave the HA a sum of money … Continue reading Exploring and Teaching Medieval History – an introduction by Ian Dawson

Roleplay and recreation: sharing great Normans resources

Happy New Year to all of you! History teachers are a wonderful tribe and OneBigHistoryDepartment exists to connect history teachers not only to each other, but to the many years of great history teaching that have gone before. We are all too busy to reinvent wheels. We are all too clever to be gulled into thinking that the issues we face in the classroom are … Continue reading Roleplay and recreation: sharing great Normans resources