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Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
Teaching History article
Jim Carroll noticed basic literacy errors in his Year 13s’ writing, but on closer examination decided that these were not best addressed purely as literacy issues. Through an intervention based on clauses, Carroll managed to enable his students to write better, but he did this by teasing out principles of...
Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?
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Film: What's the wisdom on... Change and continuity
Your Virtual History Department Meeting
We’ve been talking to our secondary school members and we know how difficult life is for teachers in the current circumstances, so we wanted to lend a helping hand.
'What’s the wisdom on…' is a new and already popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect stimulus for a...
Film: What's the wisdom on... Change and continuity
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Careers in History Pack Year 9
Teachers' Notes
Careers in History Pack Year 9
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Broadening and deepening narratives of Benin for Year 8
Teaching History article
Josh Garry describes his effort to refresh his approach to teaching the British transatlantic slave trade. Drawing on reading, lectures and discussions during an Historical Association Teacher Fellowship programme, Garry built a sequence of lessons designed to contextualise the trade while showing African agency and complexity. The result was a sequence...
Broadening and deepening narratives of Benin for Year 8
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Podcast: Why Medieval History Matters?
Medieval History
Why Medieval History Matters, Professor Anne Curry, President of the HA ‘I don't mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but there is no reason for the state to pay for them'. So, allegedly, said Charles Clarke when Education Secretary in 2003. In fact, medieval history has never...
Podcast: Why Medieval History Matters?
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Secondary Committee biographies
Information
Find out more about the HA's committees here
Sally Burnham (committee chair)
Sally is a history teacher in a school in Lincolnshire and also works one day a week at the University of Nottingham on the History PGCE. Sally has been a Head of Department and is now a Lead...
Secondary Committee biographies
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Film: What's the wisdom on... Enquiry questions (Part 1)
Your Virtual History Department Meeting
We’ve been talking to our secondary school members and we know how difficult life is for teachers in the current circumstances, so we wanted to lend a helping hand.
'What’s the wisdom on…' is a new and already popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect stimulus for a...
Film: What's the wisdom on... Enquiry questions (Part 1)
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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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Evidence: Theoretical
Links to HA resources for secondary teachers
Getting Year 10 beyond trivial judgements of ‘bias': towards victory in that battle ...
Let's play Supermarket ‘Evidential' Sweep: developing students' awareness of the need to select evidence
Assessment of students' uses of evidence: shifting the focus from processes to historical reasoning
How can students' use of historical evidence be...
Evidence: Theoretical
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Mudlarking in the Thames: evidence, ecology and enquiry
Teaching History article
Maryam Dorudi arrived at her second PGCE placement school to find many pupils receiving free school meals and speaking English as an additional language. Wanting her students to identify as Londoners and historians, she was drawn into the world of mudlarking and Lara Maiklem. Over the course of eight lessons, she...
Mudlarking in the Thames: evidence, ecology and enquiry
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Raising the bar: developing meaningful historical consciousness at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
How can we help pupils make sense of the history that they learn so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts? How can we help pupils develop and sophisticate...
Raising the bar: developing meaningful historical consciousness at Key Stage 3
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Move Me On 197: struggling to manage the history teacher education programme alongside part-time work
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 197: struggling to manage the history teacher education programme alongside part-time work
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Knowing what counts in history: historical understanding and the non-specialist teacher
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
If science graduates think that history teaching is not about questioning, that there is only ‘one answer' in history or that historical facts are unproblematic, does it matter? Should we care? Doug Newton and Lynn...
Knowing what counts in history: historical understanding and the non-specialist teacher
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Cunning Plan 158: teaching about the history of the UK Parliament
Teaching History feature
2015 is something of a year of anniversaries. It is 50 years since Churchill's death, 200 years since Waterloo, 300 since the Jacobite ‘Fifteen', 600 since Agincourt, 800 since Magna Carta. Clearly every year brings around its own crop of anniversaries; this year just seems to have quite a few...
Cunning Plan 158: teaching about the history of the UK Parliament
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A history trainee early in their teaching placement
HITT Film 1
This film series was produced to accompany materials in the Beginning Teacher units. It contains a Key Stage 3 history lesson and lesson debrief. The materials are not designed specifically to be examples of good practice; rather they are to promote discussion about good practice in teacher training.
The films show a lesson taught...
A history trainee early in their teaching placement
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Making reading routine
Teaching History article
Inspired by the growing number of history teachers who have sought to introduce younger pupils to academic historical scholarship in the classroom, Tim Jenner wanted to bring about his own reading revolution at Key Stage 3. But rather than simply develop one-off lessons or enquiries based on scholarship his goal...
Making reading routine
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New, Novice or Nervous? 164: Constructing narrative
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the no-quick-fix
Narrative is shedding its status as the ‘underrated skill’, re-emerging as a requirement of the new GCSE in England. As Counsell has argued, constructing a narrative is ‘no easy option’, however, and asking students to ‘Write an account…’ lacks the comfortable familiarity of ‘Explain why…’ or ‘How far…’. Fortunately, many...
New, Novice or Nervous? 164: Constructing narrative
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The International Journal Volume 10 Number 1
Journal
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research Volume 10, Number 1 - Summer 2011. Editorial
Jean Pierre Charland, Marc-Andre Ethier,Jean Francois Cardin History Written on Walls: a study of Quebec High School Students' historical consciousness
Michelle J. Bellino and Robert L. Selman High School Students' Understanding of Personal Betrayal...
The International Journal Volume 10 Number 1
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SHP and 'What is history?'
Article
In the 1970s a new approach to history teaching was developed through the auspices of the Schools Council History Project (SCHP) later named the Schools History Project (SHP). In order to engage pupils (and reverse the perceived danger of a declining uptake of history amongst pupils) the project authors designed...
SHP and 'What is history?'
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Year 7 challenge stereotypes about the Mexica
Teaching History article
After discussing a new book about the Mexica (Aztecs) during a routine meeting with a trainee teacher, Niamh Jennings decided to construct a sequence of lessons around the history of the Mexica Empire. Struck by the vivid storytelling of historian Camilla Townsend in her book Fifth Sun, and fascinated by...
Year 7 challenge stereotypes about the Mexica
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Bringing together students from Bradford and Peshawar
Article
Connecting Classrooms: bringing together Bradford and Peshawar, primary and secondary schools, history and English
In this article, Dianne Excell shares her experience of a crossphase, collaborative project funded by the British Council that brought together teachers and pupils from three schools in Bradford and five schools in Peshawar, Pakistan. Although...
Bringing together students from Bradford and Peshawar
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Online CPD Unit: Creativity in the History Classroom
E-CPD
Oh no - not more extended writing! Firing pupil motivation through creative tasking.
This E-CPD unit considers the issues departments needs to consider in planning for both challenging and engaging history.
The example of teaching below comes from the Historical Association Key Stage 2-3 History transition project website (2005). The...
Online CPD Unit: Creativity in the History Classroom
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What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
Teaching History feature
One way of explaining what is meant by an enquiry question is to start with what it is not.
What's the Wisdom On... is a short guide providing new history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching. It...
What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
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Time's arrows? Using a dartboard scaffold to understand historical action
Teaching History article
Arthur Chapman presents a task-specific scaffold - a ‘dart' board - designed to teach students how to interrogate sources of information so that these become sources of evidence for particular claims about past actions, beliefs and aims. Chapman also uses his ‘dart' board to foster students' reflection on the degrees of...
Time's arrows? Using a dartboard scaffold to understand historical action
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Recorded webinar: Making the most out of Holocaust Memorial Day: challenges and opportunities
Article
Since 2001 the UK has marked Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January, the date of the 'liberation' of Auschwitz Birkenau by Soviet soldiers in 1945. History teachers and their colleagues are often asked to 'mark' HMD in their schools. In this webinar we will explore themes of commemoration and education...
Recorded webinar: Making the most out of Holocaust Memorial Day: challenges and opportunities
