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‘Man, people in the past were indeed stupid’
Teaching History journal article
In this article, which is based on Huijgen’s PhD dissertation Balancing between the past and the present, Tim Huijgen and Paul Holthuis present the results of an experimental method of teaching 14–16-year-old students to contextualise their historical studies in a different way. In the four lessons described, students’ initial reactions...
‘Man, people in the past were indeed stupid’
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Polychronicon 170: The Becket Dispute
Journal article
‘The Becket Dispute’ (or ‘Controversy’) refers to the quarrel between Henry II and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, which dominated English ecclesiastical politics in the 1160s. It was a conflict with multiple dimensions: a clash of Church and State; a prolonged struggle between two prominent individuals; a close friendship turned...
Polychronicon 170: The Becket Dispute
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Conducting the orchestra to allow our students to hear the symphony
Teaching History article
Alex Ford and Richard Kennett both welcome the renewed emphasis on knowledge within recent curriculum reforms in England, but are concerned about some of the ways in which the principle of a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum has been interpreted and transformed into particular pedagogical prescriptions. In this article they explain their reasons...
Conducting the orchestra to allow our students to hear the symphony
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New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the ‘no-quick-fix’
This page is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Each problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don’t exist. But in others’ writing, you’ll find something better: conversations in which history teachers have debated or tackled your problems – conversations which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
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Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
Journal article
History teachers have frequently made recourse to character cards as a device to help young people, each assigned specific roles, to understand how different kinds of people responded in different ways to particular situations in the past.
Edward FitzGerald builds on this tradition, demonstrating the value of using rich historical...
Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
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Trampolines and Springboards
Teaching History article
Frustrated by his pupils’ tendency to compartmentalise source analysis into two discrete parts of ‘source’ and ‘own knowledge’, Jonathan Sellin reflected that his use of scaffolds might be to blame. Inspired by recent work by teacher-researchers Hammond and King on the importance of secure substantive knowledge in the area of...
Trampolines and Springboards
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Triumphs Show 170: making a place for fieldwork in history lessons
Journal article
Why ‘do’ local history? The new (grades 9–1) GCSE specifications place a lot of importance on the local environment. The rationale for this is to get students to situate a site in its historical context, and to examine the relationship between local and national developments. Initially this change was the...
Triumphs Show 170: making a place for fieldwork in history lessons
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Polychronicon 166: The ‘new’ historiography of the Cold War
Teaching History feature
A great deal of new writing on the Cold War sits at the crossroads of national, transnational and global perspectives. Such studies can be so self-consciously multi-archival and multipolar, methodologically pluralist in approach and often ‘decentring’ in aim, that some scholars now worry that the Cold War risks losing its coherence as a distinct object of...
Polychronicon 166: The ‘new’ historiography of the Cold War
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Using sites for insights
Teaching History article
Working alongside local history teachers to prepare for the new GCSE specifications Steve Illingworth and Emma Manners were struck that many teachers were concerned about two issues in particular: the breadth and depth of knowledge demanded and new forms of assessment, especially the historic environment paper. In this article they...
Using sites for insights
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Move Me On 166: getting the right pitch for GCSE teaching
Teaching History feature
This feature is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development.
This issue’s problem: Bob Williams is struggling to get the pitch right in teaching topics at GCSE that the school previously taught to Year 7.
Bob Williams, now half way through his training year, is feeling very out...
Move Me On 166: getting the right pitch for GCSE teaching
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How We Used to Sleep
School Resources
Want to take a fresh look at medicine through time with your students?
If so, you might be interested in teaching them about sleep’s history in the Renaissance. By focusing on sleep – something that we all do and have an opinion on – students can be introduced to changing...
How We Used to Sleep
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The Aztecs & Spanish Conquest for GCSE
Briefing Pack
Ian Mursell set up Mexicolore in 1980 with his Mexican partner Graciela Sánchez and has worked since then with a wide variety of heritage and academic partners specialising in Aztec and Maya history. With the Aztecs now becoming a study unit on the OCR 2016 GCSE specification B, the Historical...
The Aztecs & Spanish Conquest for GCSE
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Teaching the Historic Environment
Guidance for teaching the Historic Environment in new GCSE courses
The GCSE History criteria specify that the courses should cover three geographical contexts: local, British and European/wider world. The requirement to include some local history has been developed into the study of a locality in its Historic Environment. This has been developed in four different ways by the Awarding bodies...
Teaching the Historic Environment
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Active remembrance
Teaching History article
A year after the end of the First World War, George V stated: "I believe that my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate the memory of the Great Deliverance and those who laid down their lives to achieve it."
From that moment, the idea of large-scale remembrance...
Active remembrance
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History GCSE Specification Comparison Tool
GCSE Resource
This short guidance is designed to help you compare the 9-1 GCSE specifications. The first examinations of these new linear GCSEs was in the summer of 2018.
History GCSE Specification Comparison Tool
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GCSE topics mapped against our resources
HA Resources and GCSE History
At the HA, we know it’s hard enough trying to grapple with new GCSE units of study, assessment and content without also having to research where you can find interesting or supportive resources, either for your own, or your students subject knowledge. Our secondary committee have pooled resources and helped...
GCSE topics mapped against our resources
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Cunning Plan 163.1: GCSE Thematic study
Teaching History feature
I started teaching ‘crime and punishment through time’ thematically a few years ago. I was teaching it as a Schools History Project ‘study in development’. We had moved from ‘medicine through time’ in order to keep things fresh. After six times through the content, much as I loved it, crime,...
Cunning Plan 163.1: GCSE Thematic study
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Beyond tokenism: diverse history post-14
Teaching History Article
Nick Dennis shows how a ‘multidirectional memory’ approach to teaching history can move history teachers beyond seeing black history as separate or distracting from the history that must be aught at examination level. He gives examples of ways in which a diverse history can be built into examination courses, strengthening...
Beyond tokenism: diverse history post-14
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Shaping the debate: why historians matter more than ever at GCSE
Teaching History article
The question of how to prepare students to succeed in the examination while also ensuring that they are taught rigorous history remains as relevant as ever. Faced with preparing students to answer a question that seemingly precluded argument, Rachel Foster and Kath Goudie demonstrate how they used historical scholarship both to...
Shaping the debate: why historians matter more than ever at GCSE
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Key Principles for teaching Thematic Studies at GCSE
GCSE Guidance
For many teachers the thematic study is the most new and most troubling unit of the new GCSE specifications. By following this link, you will be connected to an article that appears on www.thinkinghistory.co.uk. This free website for teachers is maintained by Ian Dawson. In this article Ian works with...
Key Principles for teaching Thematic Studies at GCSE
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The knowledge illusion
Teaching History article
Focusing on students’ attempts to explain the relative significance of different factors in Hitler’s rise to power, Catherine McCrory explores the vexed question of why students who seem able to express necessary historical knowledge on one occasion cannot effectively reproduce it on another. Drawing on a detailed analysis of what...
The knowledge illusion
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Recorded webinar series: From Cyrus to Cleopatra: The ancient history adventure
Free webinar series for secondary teachers from the Historical Association and the Classical Association
This webinar series, offered in collaboration with the Classical Association, explores how ancient history can be embedded across the key stages at secondary level. Across this series, we will show you how teaching ancient history is relevant today, enriches modern classrooms and gives learners the opportunity to explore some key...
Recorded webinar series: From Cyrus to Cleopatra: The ancient history adventure
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History as a foreign language
Teaching History article
Disappointed that the use of the ‘PEEL’ writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted...
History as a foreign language
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Fundamental British Values and history teaching
Article
In this article, Michael Maddison provides an overview of what schools must do in relation to promoting British values, as well as preventing extremism and radicalisation, and why it is so important that opportunities are taken in history to deal with these two pressing issues. It is an updated version...
Fundamental British Values and history teaching
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New approaches to teaching the History of Appeasement in the classroom
Multipage Article
This project has been created on the initiative of Professor Julie. V. Gottlieb, Dept. of History, University of Sheffield. British political history, political conflict, appeasement and the Munich Crisis (1938) itself is the focus of her research and publications. Rather than approach these topics from ‘traditional’, elite and history from...
New approaches to teaching the History of Appeasement in the classroom
