Beginning teacher

Welcome to the beginning teacher section of the HA website. It has been designed to support:
- Anyone thinking of becoming a history teacher
- Those who are in their training year
- Colleagues in their first three years of teaching history
- Colleagues who are working with beginning secondary history teachers.

Initial teacher education (ITE) routes into history teaching vary. Some beginning history secondary teachers train via a university and school partnership route, while others’ training is fully centred in schools. Whatever the route into history teaching, learning to teach the subject – history – is vitally important. Read more

Sort by: Date (Newest first) | Title A-Z
Show: All | Articles | Podcasts | Multipage Articles
  • Beginning teachers’ professional learning

    Multipage Article

    In this section you will find ideas, resources and activities to support the professional learning of colleagues: At the very beginning of learning to be a history teacher As they gain more direct classroom experience in their first year In the second and third years of their teaching career in...

    Click to view
  • Continuing your professional development as an early career history teacher

    Article

    This document is designed for history teachers in years 2-4 of their career. Whilst teachers with more experience will find inspiration here, its primary purpose is to nurture subject-specific career development immediately after the intense NQT year. Working with these ideas will help prepare an early career teacher for academic...

    Click to view
  • Driving your development

    Multipage Article

    This module of short films is designed as a practical toolkit for new teachers to support you to survive and thrive applying for and into your first history teaching post. We'll be covering all of the major aspects of successfully applying for your first history teaching post and how to...

    Click to view
  • Structuring learning for beginning teachers

    Multipage Article

    This section focuses on the topic of structuring learning for beginning history teachers. That is, organising training so that beginning teachers can make good progress in their professional development. Within the section, there is advice and guidance about working with adult learners (as opposed to children) and about building a...

    Click to view
  • Supporting resources

    Information

    A wealth of resources exist on the rest of the HA website and on the HA Secondary Committee’s blog onebighistorydepartment (OBHD) to help teachers and to support better history teaching. In addition, many books and articles have been published that are easily available to school history teachers. On this page you...

    Click to view
  • Teaching for beginners

    Multipage Article

    This section is divided into three sub-sections: 2.1 What is history in schools?2.2 Historical knowledge2.3 History classroom practice An introduction to the discipline of history in schools is covered in ‘What is history in schools?’ Beginning teachers need to learn and think about the nature and purposes of history in the school classroom...

    Click to view
  • Thinking of teaching?

    Multipage Article

    Routes into teaching Although there are now hundreds of training providers and different courses from which to choose, an awareness of some basic distinctions can help enormously in deciding what type of programme you want to follow, and clarifying your options. One essential distinction is between fee-paying programmes, on which...

    Click to view