The last four years have seen a variety of events, projects and memorials to mark the centenary of the First World War. As we head into the autumn term, thoughts turn to how we as historians can commemorate the Armistice of 1918, a key turning point in ending the conflict. Although the war did not […]
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As teacher educators, working with PGCE trainees in many different History departments, we knew that a workshop which focused on supporting struggling GCSE students would draw people in when we presented it at the Historical Association Annual Conference. All new exam specifications create huge anxieties for teachers, but the sense of pressure associated with the […]
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17 July 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the murder of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family in a cellar in Ekaterinburg in the Urals. This centenary provides an opportunity to review the circumstances which led to the Tsar’s tragic end and to reflect on the importance of the event for the course […]
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I was not surprised when I finished reading ‘Why Closing the Word Gap Matters: Oxford Language Report’ , but it still made for sombre reading. The report put in black and white what teachers already know: Most of the students we teach don’t have the vocabulary they need to fulfil their full potential at school. The word gap affects students’ wider life chances. After […]
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Not all teachers can say that they went to school on the last Monday before half term with a spring in their step. I, however, did exactly that. It was the first day back after ‘The Big Day’… not the Royal Wedding nor not the FA Cup Final, but the Historical Association Conference 2018. I […]
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As History teachers, we are just about to embark on ‘exam madness’ season. We have precious little time left with our exam classes. We will be prepping and delivering extra revision sessions on top of completing all of the other tasks that are part and parcel of our profession. So it is no surprise that […]
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The release of Kathryn Bigelow’s movie Detroit in August 2017, which tells the story of major race riots in 1967 in USA, has recently re-awakened my own memories of the turmoil of the struggle for American civil rights which I was privileged to observe at first hand. I lived in the United States for a […]
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For the first few years of my teaching career, I would set revision lessons without much expectation. If you were going to do a test, you should at least give some chance of success by providing the lesson before for ‘revision’. I would often provide a list of suggested activities that students could pick from: […]
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This month marks one-hundred years since The Representation of the Peoples Act was passed which, for the first time, gave some women the right to vote. To celebrate we have created this interactive timeline which shows some of the key dates and events which contributed to women gaining the right to vote in Britain. Taken […]
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In the AQA GCSE History specification, the Historic Environment element is integrated with the British Depth Study. This means that as students develop an in-depth knowledge of a British period, their understanding of that period would in turn help them to understand the historic site. It is useful to approach the study of a historic […]
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