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AS & A2 History
Article
My complaints about the new AS/A2 specifications have been reported elsewhere,1 but below I outline my main concerns regarding the new examination system, which I see as a missed opportunity to introduce a 16-19 History curriculum that meets the needs of young people in the twenty-first century. The Curriculum 2000...
AS & A2 History
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On-demand webinar: Developing subject knowledge as a mentor
Mentoring beginning and early career history teachers in the secondary school
Mentoring beginning and early career history teachers in the secondary school
Session 1: Developing subject knowledge
This first webinar will begin with the question: What do beginning and early career history teachers need to know about history? It will explore the substantive and disciplinary subject knowledge that is essential for...
On-demand webinar: Developing subject knowledge as a mentor
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Literacy and Oracy in History
Multipage Article
Argument is at the heart of history. The historically literate student can argue. Historical speaking and writing is about presenting an evidence-based argument, even when producing a narrative. History students need to bring together knowledge of different kinds to form an argument. They need to know how to defend and...
Literacy and Oracy in History
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Tackling A-level students’ misconceptions about historical interpretations and the historiography of Scottish witchcraft
Teaching History article
Maya Stiasny was troubled by a stubbornly persistent flaw in her A-level students’ conception of historical interpretations. Students were seeing historians’ arguments as snapshots in time, emerging magically and unproblematically out of personal views, rather than crafted as a process. Stiasny wanted her students to understand that process as an academically rigorous...
Tackling A-level students’ misconceptions about historical interpretations and the historiography of Scottish witchcraft
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Teaching history as a non-specialist
An induction course providing essential support for non-specialists teaching Key Stage 3 and GCSE history
Are you teaching history without a history background? Whether you’re an RS, geography, or general humanities teacher picking up some Key Stage 3 history – or have found yourself unexpectedly teaching a bit of GCSE – this flexible, supportive induction course is designed just for you.
With a series of...
Teaching history as a non-specialist
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Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2022 by David Olusoga
Article
Professor David Olusoga is a revered TV historian, a writer and a practising academic at Manchester University. In 2022 he was the recipient of the Historical Association's annual Medlicott medal, awarded for outstanding contributions to history.
The recipient of the medal provides the closing lecture of the HA's annual awards evening. Professor...
Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2022 by David Olusoga
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Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
Teaching History article
Understanding historical interpretation involves understanding how historical knowledge is constructed. How do sixth formers model historical epistemology? In this article Arthur Chapman examines a small sample of data relating to sixth form students' ideas about why historians construct differing interpretations of the past. He argues that understanding interpretation requires students to...
Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
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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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Using oral history in the classroom
Multipage Article
The Oral History Society has kindly agreed to produce two new films aimed at history teachers who are new to carrying out or using oral histories either in their teaching or with students. These two films will equip teachers with the essential tools and knowledge for using and devising effective...
Using oral history in the classroom
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Dealing with the consequences
Teaching History journal article
Do GCSE and A-level questions that purport to be about consequences actually reward reasoning about historical consequences at all? Molly-Ann Navey concluded that they do not and that they fail to encourage the kind of argument that academic historians engage in when reaching judgements about consequences. Navey decided that it...
Dealing with the consequences
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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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Film: “The Talk Should Not Be Broadcast”: Homosexuality and the BBC before 1967
Virtual Branch
In the centenary year of the BBC, this Virtual Branch talk from Marcus Collins relates the strange tale of how the BBC did and did not broadcast about homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s and what it tells us about sexuality, broadcasting and the origins of permissiveness in mid-twentieth century Britain.
Marcus Collins...
Film: “The Talk Should Not Be Broadcast”: Homosexuality and the BBC before 1967
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Approaches to the History Curriculum: skills based curriculum
Briefing Pack
In 2010 many schools were adopting thematic or skills based curricula in England. This is one way of organising a curriculum. Some of the pros and cons of this approach are elaborated here.
There are an increasing number of schools now adopting a thematic or skills based curriculum for year...
Approaches to the History Curriculum: skills based curriculum
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The International Journal Volume 8 Number 2
Journal
The International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR] was founded to provide an international medium for reporting on History Education.
Articles in the edition:
Erinc Erdal and Ruken Akar Vural Teaching History through Drama: the ‘Armenian Deportation'
Terry Haydn and Richard Harris Children's ideas about what it means...
The International Journal Volume 8 Number 2
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How my interest in what I don't teach has informed my teaching and enriched my students' learning
Teaching History article
How my interest in what I don't teach has informed my teaching and enriched my students' learning
Flora Wilson argues here for the importance of maintaining a fascination with history as an academic subject for experienced, practising history teachers. Just as medical professionals keep their knowledge up to date by...
How my interest in what I don't teach has informed my teaching and enriched my students' learning
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2024 – the winners
The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-15 years
Real history contains some of the most fanciful, exciting, worrying and incredible stories – learning about the past can open our eyes to how people have interacted with the world and each other for centuries. It is not surprising that alongside the real history most cultures and traditions have a...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2024 – the winners
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Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Jacob Olivey set out to design enquiries which would enable his pupils to reconstruct, using evidence, the perspectives of people in the past. In this article he shares in detail the planning and outcomes of two enquiries: one for Year 7 and one for Year 8. Olivey offers a example...
Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
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The return of King John: using depth to strengthen overview in the teaching of political change
Teaching History article
Dale Banham's article in Teaching History 92, ‘Getting ready for the Grand Prix: learning to build a substantiated argument in Year 7' has influenced much debate about extended writing. It has been influential way beyond the history education community. It also raised new questions about the management of historical content....
The return of King John: using depth to strengthen overview in the teaching of political change
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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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The International Journal Volume 12, Number 1
Journal
Editorial
Sweden
Ethical Values and History: a mutual relationship?
Niklas Ammert, Linnaeus University (Kalmar)
Australia
Teaching History Using Feature Films: practitioner acuity and cognitive neuroscientific validation
Debra Donnelly, University of Newcastle
Greece
The Difficult Relationship Between the History of the Present and School History in Greece: cinema as...
The International Journal Volume 12, Number 1
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Useful Resources for History Teaching
Useful Resources
The following are lists of those resources which we have found genuinely useful during our NQT year, or which we feel could be used to good effect, whether as sources, interpretations or stimulus materials. The lists are not exhaustive, and are inevitably skewed towards those topics which we have taught....
Useful Resources for History Teaching
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Using an anthology of substantial sources at GCSE
Teaching History article
Struck by his GCSE students’ bewildered expressions when studying source extracts, Liam McDonnell decided to adopt a new approach to source analysis. Inspired by the work of other history teachers, McDonnell decided to use an anthology of substantial sources when studying nineteenth-century Whitechapel in London. By revisiting the sources at...
Using an anthology of substantial sources at GCSE
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Film: What's the wisdom on... Extended Reading
Your Virtual History Department Meeting
'What’s the wisdom on…' is a popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect stimulus for a department meeting. 'What’s the wisdom on…' provides history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of many years of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching.
To...
Film: What's the wisdom on... Extended Reading
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Content restricted and maturation retarded? Problems with the post-16 history curriculum
Teaching History article
Mike Tillbrook examines the impact of the new AS and A2 courses, raising several serious concerns. He explores problems for effective and rigorous assessment as well as implications of the new course structure for the quality and range of historical learning. Critical of new restrictions in content, he suggests that...
Content restricted and maturation retarded? Problems with the post-16 history curriculum
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Past Forward: University history and school history
Article
Recent trends in university history University historians have little incentive to discover what goes on in school history classrooms and many disincentives, as pressures of work mount and the ogres of university management point to the overwhelming need to improve, or sustain, current Research Assessment Exercise grades. History is rarely...
Past Forward: University history and school history
