I have always been really bad at turning the wall displays in my classroom into something useful for my students to interact with. But on my visits to other schools, I have seen some great practice.

I went to Kent a while ago to work with history teachers from across the Garden of England.  Chris Higgins, the wonderful Head of History at Folkstone Girls School was a great host.  Chris also had some amazing wall displays which I thought were ace enough to share.

He had a brilliant through time study. As it is a girls school, they have hemlines through time! How engaging and meaningful to his clientele.

Chris also asks girls who are coming up from primary school in the following September to send a postcard from their holidays and turns this into a wall display early in the Autumn term. This is how to make your students feel valued.

The display which I simply loved the most though is ‘How do you measure up to historical figures?’ This is such a brilliant idea. It stands in the corridor in the history department. It has measured the heights of famous individuals and invites students to stand next to them to see if they are as tall – I just love this idea. Fun, quirky and engaging. Thanks so much to  Chris for sharing his great practice.

Finally, my rather pathetic effort of a display I inevitably stole. I can’t remember if it was Alec Fisher or someone else who came up with the idea of creating keywords with definitions hidden underneath? But this is the one thing that I have always insisted on having on display.

This means that when I am talking about history skills, I can check that my students understand that I am talking the same language, quiz them and if they are not sure on the key term they can go and look under the flap – it works a little like an individual advent calendar. You can download the key terms here.

Happy history teaching