The ‘Survive and Thrive’ materials are intended as introductory guides to support new history teachers in tackling their most urgent priorities on a day-to-day basis and establishing secure foundations for their continued learning. Although we have drawn a distinction between the initial stages of ‘survival’ in confronting the challenges of the initial training year and learning to ‘thrive’ in your first professional post, the nature of different routes into teaching mean that these two stages may well overlap.

While the units include a great deal of immediate practical advice, they are also intended to help you identify the essential principles underpinning effective history teaching and to map out the key questions that you need to explore as your practice develops. All of the principles of planning, teaching and evaluation that they address can, of course, be followed up in greater depth in other sections of the website.