Neil Bates wrote this post a few years back. Never has it been so relevant as now. What with the recent wave of right wing riots, it is more important than ever that we use history to contextualise what happened. Read Neil provides you with brilliant advice on how to[…]
With the 9-1 GCSE there is more content to remember than there was with the older GCSE. Fact! We all need to develop short sharp ideas, or ‘tricks’ to make learning stick.
Some people say knowledge is power. Others say powerful knowledge is power. But that is another debate. But how is the history teacher being controlled? We know we are being controlled by Ofsted. SLTs react to what they think Ofsted are looking for. This is then forced upon teachers through teaching[…]
There is a strong case for English pupils studying more Wider world histories. I outlined in the previous blog post on this topic. The National Curriculum at Key Stage 3 gives schools ample scope for such a study. Nevertheless, diverse world history units, in general, are somewhat hard to find[…]
Ever since I started teaching history I have been hugely conscious of the need to teach a broad and diverse history curriculum. My curriculum offer has always attempted to focus on unknown voices of people from these islands and beyond. I have taught about forgotten English people from our rich[…]
20 year’s worth of thinking has gone into planning and resourcing the HRC KS3 curriculum. The rationale behind this comes from scholarship, policy and best practice. The free schemes of work and curriculum map provide you with an ambitious and coherent curriculum plan. We believe that the National Curriculum for[…]
Fingers crossed!? This is what one successful head of history hopes SLT will do in the New Year: Cancel your PiXL subscription and stop spending money on exam board spec courses. Put the £s of savings into department budgets. Give time for teachers to digest the spec materials and other[…]
Yesterday we had an INSET day focusing on curriculum planning. We enjoyed the second collaborative day whereby the local primary schools attended the secondary school for joint CPD. The afternoons are fantastic! Fantastic CPD Secondary and primary classroom teachers attending sessions together, delivered by colleagues. My NQT and PGCE trainee[…]
I think I might be out of fashion. Come to think of it, on a sartorial level I have never been in fashion. But that is a digression. You see I have always been an advocate of enquiry based history. I gardened in Michael Riley’s enquiry garden way back in[…]
Advice on how to stimulate and cater for students’ curiosity about history outside the classroom – with reading list download.
Recently, with the focus centring on the curriculum again, the term ‘powerful knowledge’ seems to have entered educational parlance. It appears in discussions on in the echo-chamber that is Edutwitter. The phrase ‘powerful knowledge’ seems to hold magical, untouchable qualities in general, and in particular when it comes to history teaching. It seems[…]
As you know Ofsted are changing their focus. They are proposing they look much more closely at the quality of the curriculum in schools. Over the last two years, they have conducted 3 research projects in schools. Knowing what their findings here are is really helpful. We live in a[…]
L.P. Hartley famously stated that ‘the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.’ The more time I spend in history classrooms the more I agree. I would go further, I don’t just think the past is a foreign country, I also think that history to many students[…]
If you were to analyse the frequency of words used in the proposed Ofsted inspection handbook (first use for January 2020), what do you think the three most frequent words would be? ‘Teaching’? ‘Learning‘? Maybe ‘Pupils‘? You probably wouldn’t be surprised to find that ‘school’ is the most common which appears[…]
Clearly, curriculum planning and implementation are rightly going to be a hot agenda item for any school/subject leader over the coming few years. This has to be a good thing. It is just depressing that in our accountability mad system, we have to wait for the lever/threat of Ofsted inspections[…]
So, how do you go about planning a broad and balanced history curriculum? Or to put it another way, how do you create a coherent curriculum plan? Well this has been on our agenda for years now. We have blogged about it before. Curriculum planning is going to be of[…]
As I said in my previous post, there has been lots of interest in history curriculum planning again. This can only be a good thing. Recently, Ofsted has viewed many of the schools they inspect as exam factories where pupils are taught to pass the test at the cost of[…]
Praise be! In the last few months, there has been lots of interest in curriculum planning again. Recently, Ofsted has viewed many of the schools they inspect as exam factories where pupils are taught to pass the test at the cost of a high-quality education. The latest Ofsted framework focuses[…]
As stated in a previous blog, the teaching of historical interpretations is a crucial element of developing your student’s historical thinking. If you want to play the game where your teaching is solely about getting kids to ‘pass the test’, to do well in the 9-1 GCSEs then this is[…]
Are interventions worth it? How much time do you spend on ‘interventions’? How busy are you with year 11/12/13 weekly intervention, after school revision sessions, lunch time drop ins, emails home for those who haven’t and probably won’t ever attend, logging this attendance on SIMs… All of these things take[…]
Recently I arranged for Michael Riley to come and work with my initial teacher trainees and their mentors at Sussex University. What a privilege. After all, it was Michael alongside Jamie Byrom who inspired me to teach history the way that I have been for the last 18 years. A[…]
A Traveller’s guide to planning for success in the 9-1 GCSE: I have recently become fascinated by the history of the American West. There are so many great personalities and stories when you start to look. Visiting a number of these sites in the summer really made this history resonate[…]
A guide to conducting and oral history project from Giddy – a brilliant new resource which, explores teenage memories from the post-war era
The 9-1 GCSE are content heavy. Fact. To ensure that teachers cover all of this content well, there is less time at the end of the two years to be able to re-visit and revise. So what do we do? How should we go about planning and teaching 2016 GCSE[…]
Six steps for teachers to plan, organise and make the most of history field trips and visits to historic sites.
Running a successful revision information evening. When we get to the weeks leading up to Easter revision season is upon us. In schools all over the land colleagues find themselves somewhere on the spectrum between being inundated with eager students to dragging them kicking and screaming to revision classes. There[…]
Here are 6 Strategies for using You Tube clips in the history classroom. YouTube is such a fantastic resource that when you take a step back it is almost impossible to comprehend. If you’d have told me 20 years ago that I could type a few words into a[…]
Data, spreadsheets, tracking, CAT scores, Progress 8, levels of progress, intervention strategies, Pupil Premium….ever feel like your department time is eaten up with things a million miles away from the love of History and the love of teaching it to students that first brought you in to the job? We[…]
If we are to create outstanding learning and learners, we need to engage our pupils to become curious in the classroom. One way to help engage learners and create curiosity is ensure that all enquiries that start in an intriguing and stimulating way. This isn’t a new and revelationary idea. Good teachers[…]
What 2016 History GCSE offers the best approach to assessment? We offer you a simple comparison tool. You may well have already decided what you think the best course is for you and for your students. I have blogged about this before. But, just to remind you, I think you need[…]
