Early Career History Teacher: knowledge audit

This blogpost is primarily for colleagues in their first year of teaching history and for their mentors supporting them, but it might well be useful for other colleagues too! The Early Career Framework (ECF) has now been rolled out nationally. It has been designed to support continuing professional development. As colleagues working with the ECF know, it identifies five core areas of development: behaviour management, … Continue reading Early Career History Teacher: knowledge audit

NEW! Support for beginning history teachers

The HA has launched resources to support beginning teachers and those who work with them. Are you thinking of becoming a history teacher? About to train as a history teacher? In your training year? In your first year in post? In the first three years of your history teaching career? Working with beginning teachers? If the answer to any of these Qs is ‘YES!’ than … Continue reading NEW! Support for beginning history teachers

Beginning teaching in lockdown and beyond!

This blogpost is focused on beginning teachers. It starts with a focus on the specifics of training during lockdown. It then draws your attention to resources for beginning teachers that you might not be aware of and shares news of upcoming resources to look out for next term. Training to be a history teacher is different this year, but it is not a deficit model. … Continue reading Beginning teaching in lockdown and beyond!

An honest view of the curriculum planning process

Ruth Lingard (@YorkClio), a member of Secondary Committee and Head of History at Millthorpe School in York, gives us a refreshingly honest view on curriculum development. It can be easy to get the impression on social media that everything those who post do is marvellous. Ruth takes the long view and thinks about why her department lost track of a coherent curriculum and, at the … Continue reading An honest view of the curriculum planning process

Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools

When the Historical Association invited me and several other teachers to design new schemes of work for the website, we had two new resources upon which to draw. The first was the new and exciting scholarship that had emerged to coincide with the centenary, including works like Jane Robinson’s Hearts and Minds and Fern Riddell’s Death in Ten Minutes; the second a database designed by … Continue reading Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools

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!

Acting out the BIG PICTURE: using geeky scripted role plays at GCSE and A Level

Jen Thornton, Head of History at Loreto Grammar School, shares her solution to teaching ‘the big picture’. She describes her approach and then shares her scripts with us so everyone can use them. Onebighistorydepartment! As an NQT back in 2006, I was blessed to work with a brilliant History department, and there is one thing I took away from that year which is still a … Continue reading Acting out the BIG PICTURE: using geeky scripted role plays at GCSE and A Level

FREE – Historical Fiction list from the HA

The Historical Association Secondary Committee have put together this HA_Historical_Fiction_list for people to use with their students. It is designed to help history teachers to inspire students of all ages in secondary school to read historical fiction for pleasure and also to get better at doing history. Please share it! Historical fiction works very powerfully to help some people do even better at history, including … Continue reading FREE – Historical Fiction list from the HA

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

Using Living Graphs to support making supported judgements

We all face a challenge to help our students understand change over time and to make judgements about the most important factors contributing to change. I use Living Graphs a lot, especially with my A-level historians. Living graphs are a visual way to assess the relative importance of events or actions. Students create a line graph showing change over time in relation to specific criteria. … Continue reading Using Living Graphs to support making supported judgements