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Nutshell 127
Article
What exactly is TEACH all about? It stands for Teaching Emotive and controversial Issues in History. It was a project funded by the DfES and produced by the Historical Association. The main focus was on how such matters are addressed by those teaching history to those as young as 3...
Nutshell 127
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Music, blood and terror: making emotive and controversial history matter
Teaching History article
Lomas and Wrenn, co-authors and compilers of the Historical Association’s DfES-funded T.E.A.C.H 3-19 Report (Teaching Emotive and Controversial History), explore further ideas and examples of good practice from issues arising out of the report’s conclusions. Lomas and Wrenn propose five distinct categories of emotive and controversial history that further develop...
Music, blood and terror: making emotive and controversial history matter
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History, citizenship and controversy
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Y4 question their MP about nuclear waste policy; Y6 survey people in their community and school about a proposed casino in their town, and feed back the information to the local council; children decide to...
History, citizenship and controversy
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Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
Teaching History article
No longer is historical significance the ‘forgotten key element.’ Indeed, it is now being remembered at last – by politicians, telly-dons and the media in any case. Matthew Bradshaw suggests that the popular emphasis on significant events is wrong. Instead, we should be enabling our pupils to make their own...
Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
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Politics, history and stories about the Cold War
Article
Interpretation of the Cold War is a fascinating area. Many students begin to study it certain pre-formed ideas – gleaned from their parents, perhaps, or from films or computer games. Historians have interpreted it in different ways – and those who believe in the ‘twenty-year rule’ that historical judgment is...
Politics, history and stories about the Cold War
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What they think they know: the impact of pupils' preconceptions on their understanding of historical significance
Teaching History article
Robin Conway suspected that his students’ concepts of the significance of different aspects of historical periods was affected by the preconceptions that they brought to his lessons. These preconceptions were leading his students into making unhistorical judgments, without any real understanding on their part of what had affected their thinking....
What they think they know: the impact of pupils' preconceptions on their understanding of historical significance
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Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
Teaching History article
Historians and history teachers understand well that students, when they ‘answer’ questions, are creating their own interpretation. We take account of this in our teaching too: we do not pretend that, beyond the level of the simplest closed questioning, there is ever a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer approach to history....
Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right: English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance
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A team-taught conspiracy: Year 8 are caught up in a genuine historical debate
Teaching History article
Are top sets always our top priority? Of course, we know that every child matters (should that now have capital letters?) but those of us who teach in an ability-setted context also know that a bottom set left unable to access the curriculum is likely to pose bigger problems than...
A team-taught conspiracy: Year 8 are caught up in a genuine historical debate
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Mussolini's missing marbles: simulating history at GCSE
Teaching History article
Arthur Chapman and James Woodcock have collaborated before: Woodcock extended Chapman’s familiar casual metaphor of the final straw breaking a poor abused camel’s back. Here, they collaborate more explicitly to suggest a means of teaching students to produce adequately nuanced historical explanation. Their two central ideas are to produce a...
Mussolini's missing marbles: simulating history at GCSE
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Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
Teaching History article
Rachel Ward’s intriguing title seems a little out of place in an edition on teaching the most able. The point she makes, though, is that even our very brightest post-16 students need to be encouraged both to engage with the historiography surrounding their course and to learn to write with...
Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
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Polychronicon 122: The Gunpowder Plot
Teaching History feature
Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' focuses on interpretations of the Gunpowder Plot.
Polychronicon 122: The Gunpowder Plot
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Triumphs Show 120.1 - Is music the answer to the Irish question in schools?
Teaching History feature
Ian Ollerenshaw shares with us a way to help GCSE pupils understand the complexities of the ‘Irish Question’ and start to empathise with diverse perspectives. He uses a medium – music – that is familiar to teenagers, beginning with their own music before moving on to songs specifically about Ireland.
Triumphs Show 120.1 - Is music the answer to the Irish question in schools?
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Triumphs Show 119: bringing the big picture to life using a 3D rollercoaster
Teaching History feature
In this edition of 'Triumphs Show' Kate Dacey demonstrates the effectiveness of visual stimuli in improving pupils' historical understanding. Dacey achieved this by using a 3D wall display to depict the turbulent period of the Reformation.
Triumphs Show 119: bringing the big picture to life using a 3D rollercoaster
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Triumphs Show 116: A practical way of teaching the complexities of ‘The Troubles’ at GCSE
Teaching History feature
Helping pupils to understand sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland is not easy. For pupils to comprehend the origins and complexities of ‘the Troubles’ they need a big picture. That big picture could be viewed as the interaction of three concepts: time, place and identity. If pupils can at least glimpse...
Triumphs Show 116: A practical way of teaching the complexities of ‘The Troubles’ at GCSE
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Triumphs Show 117: Helping Year 9 to think and feel their way through the origins of the Holocaust
Teaching History feature
Dave Woodcraft is passionate about engaging students and making them care about the past. He is unrepentant about wanting his lessons to have an emotional impact and a relevant, immediate appeal. To this end, he frequently uses modern parallels in his classroom to make the point that issues in the...
Triumphs Show 117: Helping Year 9 to think and feel their way through the origins of the Holocaust
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Triumphs Show 102: communicating historical difference to children with literacy problems
Teaching History feature
With the summer break stretching forth its welcome hand and the final lesson with my lowband Year 7 class looming, I wanted to ensure that the enthusiasm and dedication that this class had shown throughout the year was kept alive over the holiday period. We had been studying the Norman...
Triumphs Show 102: communicating historical difference to children with literacy problems
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Triumphs Show 108: Getting the whole school buzzing about history
Teaching History feature
It was the brainwave of the English department to bring in a script writer to work with Key Stage 3 students of the full ability range writing the lower school production. This was too good an opportunity for the history department to miss.
Triumphs Show 108: Getting the whole school buzzing about history
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Triumphs Show 113: How to make the Elizabethan Religious Settlement sufficiently complicated for Year 8
Teaching History feature
This edition of the 'Triumphs Show' explains 'How to make the Elizabethan Religious Settlement sufficiently complicated for Year 8'.
Triumphs Show 113: How to make the Elizabethan Religious Settlement sufficiently complicated for Year 8
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Triumphs Show 112: William Bent and family: a personal timeline of the Plains Wars
Article
Using the experiences of William Bent and his family in the 1860s, this resource was designed to develop different kinds of historical thinking. For example, it highlights what a turning point the Sand Creek massacre proved to be.
Triumphs Show 112: William Bent and family: a personal timeline of the Plains Wars
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Triumphs Show 123: Making sources fun
Teaching History feature
One of the biggest challenges which any history teacher faces is how to make sources fun! Source work does struggles in terms of pupil excitement, understanding and motivation when pitted against the roleplays, dramas and debates. As a history teacher, I am constantly looking for fresh and novel ways to...
Triumphs Show 123: Making sources fun
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Triumphs Show 109: strengthening the quality and popularity of post-16 history
Teaching History feature
Why is it, I wonder, that Rednock students enjoy their history so much and why have so many opted for the subject at ‘AS’ Level? This new course, designed to bridge the gap between GCSE and ‘A’ Level, has allowed a new calibre of student to enrol. The ability range,...
Triumphs Show 109: strengthening the quality and popularity of post-16 history
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Polychronicon 118: interpretations of Henry VII
Teaching History feature
Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' explores the historical...
Polychronicon 118: interpretations of Henry VII
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Polychronicon 114: interpretations of Oliver Cromwell
Teaching History feature
Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' investigates the differing...
Polychronicon 114: interpretations of Oliver Cromwell
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Triumphs Show 110: Would you sacrifice watching television for Great Britain?
Teaching History feature
This lesson has worked well with higher ability whole classes and with smaller groups with Special Educational Needs. It is essentially a citizenship exercise. It encourages pupils to explore their own values, to justify these values through argument and, through discussion, to understand and accept that others might hold different...
Triumphs Show 110: Would you sacrifice watching television for Great Britain?
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Triumphs Show 107: opening a new HA branch
Teaching History feature
Heather Scott gives a detailed account of the opening of a new HA branch in West Yorkshire.
Triumphs Show 107: opening a new HA branch
