Thanks to Hugh Richards, Head of History at Huntington School for this blogpost. Despite this vision statements appearing across Twitter and in schools all over the country (as well as their being external CPD courses on writing them) there is little published about the thinking behind them. Here Hugh shares the process that he and his team went through to create a vision they are happy … Continue reading Process of constructing a vision statement
We will be posting a series of posts about topics relating to Black History Month and promoting great resources out there. At the HA we are concerned to support history teachers as they seek to teach in a way that better represents the past. Have you got your hands on the most recent copy of Teaching History yet? In addition articles that explain inspiring practice, … Continue reading BHM – Medicine Through Time – African Women and the British Health Service, 1930-2000
Last week the Historical Association was contacted by a history teacher member wanting help. The department they work in is under scrutiny for ‘poor’ results. The advice the department had been given was to differentiate all GCSE lessons into 3 or maybe 4 pathways. The department has mixed ability teaching groups with targets ranging from 2-8. They just knew this didn’t seem like a good … Continue reading Help! – we’re under scrutiny for our poor results…
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!
Sometimes on #OBHD we get the chance to share quality resources that colleagues have made. Thanks to Mary Brown (@MissBHist) for this one: C20th overview card sort C20th overview glossary It’s designed to address the themes of: conflict, empire, ideas and beliefs, migration, everyday life and power across the century. It’s been planned for one lesson and every image/event covers more that one of … Continue reading Free 20thC Britain timeline
The Secondary Committee at the HA is keen to challenge and support all history teachers to teach about the rich and multi-faceted past. Gemma Hargraves (@History__Girls) has written this blogpost to help colleagues teaching Chartism. In it she provides some interpretations and ideas for resources. As she says: “this isn’t just about pupils seeing themselves in the narratives of the past; be they working class, black … Continue reading Revisiting Chartism: The importance of teaching about the ‘Black Man and his Party’
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
Thanks so much to Carmel Bones for writing this blogpost. Carmel shares with us loads of great strategies for motivating our students. Why not have a go at some of these and also share some of your favourites? #OBHD It might be surprising to discover that History is not everybody’s favourite subject?! And even if it is ‘building botheredness’ is still important to ensure learner … Continue reading Building ‘Botheredness’ making reluctant learners care about History
“What do you do in the holidays?” Thanks to Jacob Keet, History Teacher at Christ’s Hospital in Horsham, West Sussex, for sharing his film clips – getting big stories and concepts across to students in an engaging way. He picks up the important theme of engaging students with history around them and helping them to be curious about how the past connects to the present. … Continue reading ‘Mr Keet on Location’ – creating documentaries as a History Teacher
In December 2018 our school was approached to take part in a pilot for Ofsted’s new framework from September 2019. This was not an official trial of the whole framework (the focus was the subject-specific curriculum in 2 subjects) and therefore has no official status. We received no judgements or written feedback. The following reflections are merely our own personal reflections on our experience. We … Continue reading Reflections on our Ofsted pilot
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