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Move Me On 140: Getting students to generate their own enquiry questions
Teaching History feature
This Issue's Problem: Rafe Sadler has just started his second teaching placement and is worried about the very different ways of working and expectations of teachers in his new department.
In his first school, where history was taught within a humanities programme, the Key Stage 3 scheme of work had...
Move Me On 140: Getting students to generate their own enquiry questions
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Telling rich stories about women’s lives in the American West at GCSE
Teaching History article
Concerned by the absence of women’s voices in her school’s scheme of work on the American West, and struck by the narrow, male-dominated narrative in her GCSE textbook, Nicole Ridley set out to rethink the way the topic was taught. Galvanised by her research into different ways to integrate women’s history,...
Telling rich stories about women’s lives in the American West at GCSE
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Bringing historical method into the classroom
Teaching History article
Shortly before their final A-level examination, Peter Turner was alarmed to discover some fundamental weaknesses in his Year 13 students’ understanding of the nature of historical interpretations. Determined to address this concern at a much earlier point with his next cohort of students he developed a new six-lesson enquiry. His...
Bringing historical method into the classroom
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Helping Year 9 to engage effectively with ‘other genocides’
Teaching History article
In this article, Andy Lawrence returns to arguments made in Teaching History 153 about the importance of teaching young people about other modern genocides in addition to the Holocaust. Building on those arguments with his own rationale, Lawrence also acknowledges the constraints on curriculum time that compel all departments to...
Helping Year 9 to engage effectively with ‘other genocides’
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Passive receivers or constructive readers?
Teaching History article
Rachel Foster reports here on research that she conducted into how students engage with academic texts. Unhappy with the usual range of texts that students encounter, often truncated and ‘simplified' in the name of accessibility, she designed a scheme of work which sought to find out how her students responded...
Passive receivers or constructive readers?
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Exploring big overviews through local depth
Teaching History article
Exploring big overviews through local depth
Rachel Foster and Kath Goudie's search for a more rigorous and interesting way of teaching Year 7 the Norman Conquest was initially driven by a desire to incorporate local history in a more meaningful way in their Key Stage 3 schemes of work.
This...
Exploring big overviews through local depth
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Move Me On 150: Planning
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Simon Montfort is given very little freedom to learn how to plan.
Simon considered himself very fortunate when he arrived in his training school. Even on the induction day his mentor had been able to give him copies of the schemes of work for each year group...
Move Me On 150: Planning
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Challenging stereotypes and avoiding the superficial: a suggested approach to teaching the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Alison Kitson provides a rationale for a scheme of work for Year 9 (13-14 year-olds). She argues that teachers should analyse the kind of historical learning that is taking place when the Holocaust is studied. Critical of the assumption that learning will take place as a result of exposure, she...
Challenging stereotypes and avoiding the superficial: a suggested approach to teaching the Holocaust
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‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
Teaching History article
As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...
‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
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Breaking the 20 year rule: very modern history at GCSE
Teaching History article
History is the study of the past; some of the past is more recent than a glance over many schemes of work might lead us to think. Chris Culpin makes the case for ignoring the 20 year rule and tackling head on – and, crucially, historically – the big issues...
Breaking the 20 year rule: very modern history at GCSE
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Move Me On 192: analytical focus with diverse histories
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 192: analytical focus with diverse histories
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Cunning Plan 186: teaching Samurai Japan in Key Stage 3
Teaching History feature
Like many history departments we have been seeking to develop schemes of work that are more outward-looking, and, as the National Curriculum describes, ‘enable pupils to know and understand significant aspects of world history’.
To my mind, Samurai Japan offers students the opportunity to explore a time and place that is...
Cunning Plan 186: teaching Samurai Japan in Key Stage 3
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Using history to launch the creative curriculum
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
At its core, the creative curriculum is a carefully planned, thematic approach to teaching and learning, designed to support and stimulate children's natural curiosity and creativity. Children can work in depth, giving them time to reflect,...
Using history to launch the creative curriculum
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Making the most of the post-1066 unit
Primary History article
Making the most of the post-1066 unit: looking at continuity and change over 10,000 years
The ‘aspect or theme of British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066’ unit is designed to extend the period of study beyond 1066 to help pupils develop a coherent picture of British history....
Making the most of the post-1066 unit
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Teaching History 99: Curriculum Planning
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
Choosing and planning your enquiry questions in Key Stage 3, The return of King John, Using depth to strengthen overview in the teaching of political change, Using a concluding enquiry to reinforce and assess earlier learning, Using ICT, Making source evaluation meaningful to Year 7 and much more...
Into the Key...
Teaching History 99: Curriculum Planning
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Primary History 39
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
04 Pupils’ reviews
05 Editorial
06 Primary Noticeboard
08 In My View: why should we continue to learn about the Second World War? — Dan Phillips
11 The impact of World War II on British children's gendered perceptions of contemporary Germany — Russell Gray (Read article)
14 When we were...
Primary History 39
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How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
Primary History article
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
The Integrated Planning Process
Introduction - Rigour ‘v' enrichment. Despite loathing the term rigour, an empty word that has numerous definitions depending on who you speak to, many teachers, Head teachers and curriculum leaders are seeking ways of integrating and...
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
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Keeping the kids on message...one school's attempt at helping sixth form students to engage in historical debating using ICT
Teaching History article
At post-16 level, keeping the ‘kids’ on message is critical. Teaching and learning must be focused on the relatively narrow goals of the examination syllabus, but set within broader historical and historiographical contexts. Students need to how know, and where, to fit their ideas into those of existing historians. Ideally...
Keeping the kids on message...one school's attempt at helping sixth form students to engage in historical debating using ICT
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Relevant, rigorous and revisited: using local history to make meaning of historical significance
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The idea of engaging pupils with the relevance of local memorials is becoming commonplace in the history classroom. In Teaching History 109, Examining History Edition, Dale Banham's pupils used First World War memorials to assess...
Relevant, rigorous and revisited: using local history to make meaning of historical significance
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Helping Year 8 to understand historians’ narrative decision-making
Teaching History article
While previous work on historical interpretations has focused students’ attention on the particular questions that historians have been asking or the context in which they have been posing those questions, less attention has been paid to the process of historical narration itself – the decisions that are made in telling...
Helping Year 8 to understand historians’ narrative decision-making
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Revealing the big picture: patterns, shapes and images at Key Stage 3.
Teaching History article
It is easy enough to incorporate overview and depth studies into a scheme-of-work. Units are carved up into those topics that last for several weeks and those that are covered in one. Isn’t that enough to satisfy the requirements of the National Curriculum? Many teachers have gone much further than...
Revealing the big picture: patterns, shapes and images at Key Stage 3.
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Using this map and all your knowledge, become Bismarck
Teaching History article
Understanding the past is not an abstract exercise. Historical questions revolve around decisions made by real people under real pressure. As historians, we factor psychological pressure into our analysis. How, though, are we to enable our students to do the same? To study why Bismarck began a programme of overseas...
Using this map and all your knowledge, become Bismarck
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Whose past is it anyway? Telling Russian and Soviet history through diverse Jewish voices
Teaching History article
When Alistair Dickins came to teach A-level Russian and Soviet history (1855–1964) he was rather surprised by the very limited references to Jewish history within the exam board specification. His own detailed knowledge in this area (a ‘little side-project’ from his doctorate on the Russian Revolution), led to a revision of the course. This article...
Whose past is it anyway? Telling Russian and Soviet history through diverse Jewish voices
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Can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
Teaching History article
Patterns of genocide: can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides....
Can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
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The Harkness Method: achieving higher-order thinking with sixth-form
Teaching History article
Hark the herald tables sing! Achieving higher-order thinking with a chorus of sixth-form pupils
On 9 April 1930, a philanthropist called Edward Harkness donated millions of dollars to the Phillips Exeter Academy in the USA. He hoped that his donation could be used to find a new way for students to sit around a table...
The Harkness Method: achieving higher-order thinking with sixth-form
