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Film: The Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (1772-1795)
Repercussions for German-Polish Relations and their Legacy.
Karin Friedrich recently joined the Virtual Branch to discuss aspects of its complex history in her talk on the partitions of Poland, their repercussions for German-Polish relations and their legacy. Professor Friedrich is chair in Early Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen, co-director of the Centre for Early Modern...
Film: The Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (1772-1795)
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HA response to the DFE consultation on CPD
CPD Consultation
In September, the government launched a call for evidence concerning teachers professional development. The Historical Association has responded to the call for evidence on behalf of our members. You can read our response below.
HA response to the DFE consultation on CPD
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Histories of education – and society?
Teaching History feature
It is not emphasised enough that the progress of historiography often proceeds, not by historians arguing and then coming to some resolution, but simply by moving on. Historiography follows fashion, and subjects often exhaust themselves (for the time being)... A related issue is that of siloes. Historiography – academic writing generally...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Histories of education – and society?
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'How do ideas travel?' East meets west - and history meets science
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Jamie Byrom is well-known to readers of Teaching History, not least for introducing us to the concept ‘professional wrestling' in the history department (Teaching History,133, Empire Edition). That article, authored with Michael Riley, focused on...
'How do ideas travel?' East meets west - and history meets science
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Of the many significant things that have ever happened, what should we teach?
Teaching History article
There are three basic strands to our lessons. How should we teach? What skills should we enable our students to build? What content should we use to deliver those skills?
In this article Tony McConnell, who has been re-designing the curriculum in his school in response to a changed examination regimen, considers the issue of subject...
Of the many significant things that have ever happened, what should we teach?
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What’s the wisdom on… Causation
Teaching History feature
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 draws on tried and tested approaches arising from teachers with years of experimenting, researching, practising, writing and debating their...
What’s the wisdom on… Causation
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Film: Building Subject Knowledge Quickly
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.
As a teacher, you may be teaching topics that you have never studied before. In this episode of the Beginning Teacher webinar series, Laura London, Lecturer in Education on the history PGCE at the University of East Anglia gives advice on...
Film: Building Subject Knowledge Quickly
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Moving Year 9 towards more complex causal explanations of Holocaust perpetration
Teaching History article
Building on research by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, Matthew Duncan was concerned that his students were drawn to simplistic explanations of Holocaust perpetrators’ actions. As well as the UCL Centre’s research, Duncan drew on history education research from Canada and history teachers’ theorisation in England for inspiration in...
Moving Year 9 towards more complex causal explanations of Holocaust perpetration
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You are members of a United Nations Commission...' Recent world crises simulations
Teaching History article
David Ghere presents a teaching and learning rationale for simulations where the location is not identified. This creates a deliberately artificial situation where the student can tackle the problems and carry out the decision-making and problem-solving exercise without preconceptions. The author does not recommend leaving the activity at this stage,...
You are members of a United Nations Commission...' Recent world crises simulations
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Recorded webinar: Natural disasters in medieval Britain
Article
Natural disasters frequently affected medieval populations. This webinar explores some examples of what happened when meteorological hazards struck medieval communities, how they reacted and what steps they took to protect themselves against future risks. Through archaeological and historical sources of evidence, Peter Brown explores the diverse impacts unleashed by disasters...
Recorded webinar: Natural disasters in medieval Britain
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Film: China's Good War
How World War II is shaping a new nationalism
In this lecture Professor Mitter uses film and other propaganda works to explore how key events of global history are being represented in China to develop a different understanding of its own past. The talk addresses a number of the factors for this change in how China is reflecting on...
Film: China's Good War
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Who wants to fight? Who wants to flee? Teaching history from a 'thinking skills' perspective
Teaching History article
Whatever shape the National Curriculum of the 21st century takes, history will have to show its relevance to major curricular areas and themes such as literacy, citizenship education and thinking skills. This ought to be easy: the critical, informed decision-making required by the modern citizen is practised in virtually every...
Who wants to fight? Who wants to flee? Teaching history from a 'thinking skills' perspective
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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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The Quality Mark award: Self-evaluation with a critical friend
Article
The Quality Mark has been a really important part in the journey of the development of our history curriculum culture at the Convent of Jesus and Mary. Our school is a diverse comprehensive all-girls Catholic school situated in Harlesden, north west London. We first started working together as a department team...
The Quality Mark award: Self-evaluation with a critical friend
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Move Me On 151: Getting past a plateau in development
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Nancy Astor seems to have reached a plateau in her development as a history teacher.
After a difficult start to her training year, Nancy seemed to be making rapid progress, but her development has now slowed and her mentor is concerned that she may not achieve her full...
Move Me On 151: Getting past a plateau in development
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New, Novice or Nervous? 149: Getting pupils to argue about causes
Teaching History feature
Every problem you're wrestling with in the history classroom, other history teachers have wrestled with too. This page is for all those new to the published writings of history teachers in Teaching History. It shows how to make a start in understanding how others have explored and discussed common and...
New, Novice or Nervous? 149: Getting pupils to argue about causes
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Bringing psychology into history: why do some stories disappear?
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History is always a relationship between the present and the past and the meaning of the past shifts as values and events change in the present. In this article Anne Llewellyn and Helen Snelson use...
Bringing psychology into history: why do some stories disappear?
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How ‘good’ are Key Stage 3 textbooks in supporting the teaching of the Holocaust?
Teaching History article
Convinced of the value of a good textbook as a teaching and learning resource, Alex Diamond set out to understand teachers’ thinking about Holocaust textbooks and what it would be for a textbook to represent Holocaust history adequately. As Diamond’s discussion shows, this is a multi-faceted issue. Evaluating textbook representation involves reflecting...
How ‘good’ are Key Stage 3 textbooks in supporting the teaching of the Holocaust?
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Designing learning activities to stimulate domain-specific thinking
Article
Active Historical Thinking: designing learning activities to stimulate domain-specific thinking.
‘Thinking Skills' have been much discussed in England since, at least, the revision of the National Curriculum in 2000 and have recently morphed, with the 2008 revisions to the curriculum, into ‘Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills'. Often, however, such ‘skills'...
Designing learning activities to stimulate domain-specific thinking
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Move Me On 193: struggling with essential management issues
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 193: struggling with essential management issues
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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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Nutshell 129: Arguing the case for keeping history at Key Stage 3
Article
Nutshell, HELP. My head wants to abandon separate subjects at Key Stage 3 and do projects linked only by content, such as ‘India', ‘Industry' or ‘Indigo' instead. SMT already stop 50% of pupils from choosing history at 13 as apparently they can't ‘achieve' in it (or can't achieve a C),...
Nutshell 129: Arguing the case for keeping history at Key Stage 3
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Using the Attainment Target in Key Stage 3: Interpretations of History
Article
An individual's knowledge of history is dependent not only on the events of the past but also on the way such events are presented. These presentations of the past come in a variety of forms and an educated person should be able to reflect purposefully on their worth...
Using the Attainment Target in Key Stage 3: Interpretations of History
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Move Me On 191: using sources in lessons
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 191: using sources in lessons
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Virtual Branch Recording: Humans
The 300,000 year struggle for equality
In this Virtual Branch talk, Dr Alvin Finkel challenges claims that egalitarian, peaceful societies disappeared with the founding of agriculture or with the founding of state-level social organisation.
Different authors have suggested that early human society was essentially egalitarian in nature, with hierarchies only later becoming common. The point at which...
Virtual Branch Recording: Humans
