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The new history 'AS-Level': principles for planning a scheme of work
Teaching History article
The new AS and A2 specifications have led to paperwork, headaches and late nights for teachers. Rachael Rudham recognises the fresh demands that the new AS-level presents – not least of which is the opening up of post-16 history to a broader range of ability. Clearly it is not possible...
The new history 'AS-Level': principles for planning a scheme of work
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The Evacuee Letter Exchange Project: using audience-centred writing to improve progression from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Jenny Parsons' work in primary-secondary liaison in history is nationally acclaimed. She is often asked to share her department's practice at courses and conferences. Readers of Teaching History are already familiar with her work in another area: in the ‘Triumphs Show' of Teaching History 93 (the ICT edition in November...
The Evacuee Letter Exchange Project: using audience-centred writing to improve progression from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3
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Worlds in collision: university tutor and student perspectives on the transition to degree level history
Teaching History article
What does it mean to be good at history? At certain times during their formal education students seem to be required to adjust their understanding of what studying history entails. Alan Booth writes from the viewpoint of a university tutor. He has collated ‘student voice’ on the experience of studying...
Worlds in collision: university tutor and student perspectives on the transition to degree level history
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Making learning drive assessment: Joan of Arc - saint, witch or warrior?
Teaching History article
Andrew Wrenn describes his work with Barry Williams and the teachers of the history department at Ailwyn School (11-14 comprehensive), Ramsey in Cambridgeshire. Devoting equal attention to the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of history assessment, he shows how this group of teachers developed a fresh approach to assessment out of...
Making learning drive assessment: Joan of Arc - saint, witch or warrior?
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Teaching History 147: Curriculum Architecture
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
08 Beth Baker and Steven Mastin - Did Alexander really ask, ‘Do I appear to you to be a bastard?' Using ancient texts to improve pupils' critical thinking (Read article)
14 Cunning Plan: Getting students to use classical texts - Beth Baker...
Teaching History 147: Curriculum Architecture
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Uncovering the hidden histories: black and Asian people in the two world wars
Teaching History Article
The stories we tell in history are often stories about ourselves. This can lead to tremendous distortion. Rupert Gaze was shocked when a young black student told him that there was no point in his studying the Second World War because it had nothing to do with him or his...
Uncovering the hidden histories: black and Asian people in the two world wars
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‘You hear about it for real in school.’ Avoiding, containing and risk-taking in the classroom
Teaching History article
In this article, Alison Kitson and Alan McCully discuss the findings of their research into history teaching in the most divided part of the United Kingdom: Northern Ireland. Drawing on interviews with students and teachers, they consider what history teaching might contribute to an understanding of the current situation and...
‘You hear about it for real in school.’ Avoiding, containing and risk-taking in the classroom
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Mussolini's marriage and a game in the playground: using analogy to help pupils understand the past
Teaching History article
Diana Laffin and Maggie Wilson want their pupils to connect with people in the past and to experience some of their emotions. The emotional factor is a difficult one in history, both for pupils and professional historians. When studying Eden’s actions at Suez, for example, what we lack is a...
Mussolini's marriage and a game in the playground: using analogy to help pupils understand the past
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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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Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their casual reasoning
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Does new vocabulary help students to express existing ideas for which they do not yet have words or does it actually give them new ideas which they did not previously hold? James Woodcock asks whether...
Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their casual reasoning
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Seeing, hearing and doing the Renaissance (Part 1): Let's have a Renaissance party!
Teaching History article
In two, linked articles, appearing in this and the next edition, Maria Osowiecki shares an account of a five-lesson enquiry, based on the concept of historical significance (National Curriculum Key Element 2e) for mixed ability Year 8. She wanted to experiment with an array of creative teaching techniques that would...
Seeing, hearing and doing the Renaissance (Part 1): Let's have a Renaissance party!
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Asses, archers and assumptions: strategies for improving thinking skills in history in Years 9 to 13
Teaching History article
Thinking skills’ is a term that has been substantially over-used. It often seems to be rather a lazy shorthand for justifying the teaching of history by suddenly bolting on some ‘thinking’ - as if history is not all about thought in the first place. Arthur Chapman suggests using techniques from...
Asses, archers and assumptions: strategies for improving thinking skills in history in Years 9 to 13
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Using fictional characters to explore the relationship between historical interpretation and contemporary attitude
Teaching History article
Helping students to understand how and why people in the present interpret the past differently is a challenge. It is also vital if we are to develop an understanding of why the meanings we ascribe to the past are not fixed, but rather are subject to our own prejudices or...
Using fictional characters to explore the relationship between historical interpretation and contemporary attitude
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Finding voices in the past: exploring identity through the biography of a house
Teaching History article
Heather De Silva, Jenny Smith and Jason Tranter outline a new study unit, planned jointly by their history and geography departments and designed specifically to meet the new requirements for local history required by England’s recently revised National Curriculum for history. They aimed to help pupils to capture a part...
Finding voices in the past: exploring identity through the biography of a house
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It's a lot harder than politics'...students' experience of history at Advanced Level
Teaching History article
Does the experience of studying history in the sixth form prepare students adequately for study at university? There is plenty of attention given to the issue of continuity across the Key Stages but much less attention given to the transition from school into higher education. It is largely assumed that...
It's a lot harder than politics'...students' experience of history at Advanced Level
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Ensuring progression continues into GCSE: let's not do for our pupils with our plan of attack
Teaching History article
Dale Banham continues a theme explored by many other teacher-authors in recent years, how to ensure that progression does not just stop in Year 9, leaving pupils stagnant in key areas of historical learning before getting picked up again in Year 12. He produces a more thorough rationale and commentary...
Ensuring progression continues into GCSE: let's not do for our pupils with our plan of attack
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'Which was more important Sir, ordinary people getting electricity or the rise of Hitler?' Using Ethel and Ernest with Year 9
Teaching History article
Mike Murray offers further new perspectives on the relationship between overview and depth in pupils’ historical learning. In an account of his teaching with Raymond Briggs’ Ethel and Ernest to a ‘below-average ability’ class in Year 9, he constructs a rationale for using this moving strip cartoon to motivate, intrigue...
'Which was more important Sir, ordinary people getting electricity or the rise of Hitler?' Using Ethel and Ernest with Year 9
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A complex empire: National Archives Learning Curve takes on the British Empire
Teaching History article
Ben Walsh describes some of the rationale behind the construction of the new Learning Curve exhibition on the British Empire and, in so doing, makes a strong case for placing empire generally and the British Empire in particular at the heart of historical study for all teenagers. A complex and...
A complex empire: National Archives Learning Curve takes on the British Empire
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Basket weaving in Advanced level history...how to plan and teach the 100 year study
Teaching History article
The current specifications for AS/A2 history require students to study change over a period of at least 100 years. Given that the 100 year study represents just one module out of six and also that it may not complement any of the other modules selected and may therefore be wholly...
Basket weaving in Advanced level history...how to plan and teach the 100 year study
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The Tudor Monarchy in crisis: using a historian's account to stretch the most able students in Year 8
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Contributors to this journal have long recognised that success in public examinations is at least partly achieved by carefully teaching in Key Stage 3. A critical component of A-Level is that students who wish to...
The Tudor Monarchy in crisis: using a historian's account to stretch the most able students in Year 8
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Cunning Plan 147: Getting students to use classical texts
Teaching History feature
The following plan provides a more detailed practical example of the approaches discussed in the article on using ancient texts.
Having puzzled over what ancient texts actually are - carefully constructed interpretations? testimonies? (but testimonies to what?) myths? - I wanted my Ancient History GCSE class to engage in this...
Cunning Plan 147: Getting students to use classical texts
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Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958
Classic Pamphlet
Ever since the death of Oliver Cromwell 300 years ago his reputation has been the subject of controversy. The royalist view of him was expressed by Clarendon: "a brave bad mad," an ambitious hypocrite. This interpretation was supported by many former Parliamentarians: Edmund Ludlow regarded Cromwell as the lost leader...
Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958
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Beyond 'I speak, you listen boy!' Exploring diversity of attitudes and experiences through speaking and listening
Teaching History article
What is historical rigour in a speaking and listening activity? How do we make sure that a direct focus on improving the quality of pupils’ classroom talk is, at the same time, a focus upon strengthening historical knowledge, skill and understanding? For while it is possible to make a very...
Beyond 'I speak, you listen boy!' Exploring diversity of attitudes and experiences through speaking and listening
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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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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
