Falling forward: Three strategies to support pupils’ study of historical significance

When Paula Worth met with history-teaching colleagues to explore how they could improve their teaching about historical significance, she found that she was far from alone in finding the process a daunting one. Prompted to investigate the difficulties she had encountered, Worth realised that that she had previously reached for lists of criteria assembled by others without fully acknowledging either the specific context or particular purposes for which they had been devised. In this article she shares the breakthroughs that came from looking more critically at her own practice and more carefully at what others had been seeking to achieve. The result is a clear explanation
of what she now regards as three of her ‘greatest mistakes’ and an outline of three invaluable strategies that she adopted to rectify them. The latter are all still rooted in advice and examples shared by others, but Worth’s experience shows the importance of engaging seriously with their designer’s thinking, rather than merely picking up what looks like a valuable resource....