On Friday 20th March, it was announced that all UK schools would close to staff and most pupils in a bid to tackle the spread of Covid-19. Immediately teachers started to do what teachers do best – they began the tricky job of ensuring that both the students who would be at home for the […]
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The History community – in fact, the teaching world in general – seems to have gone ‘knowledge-rich’ mad over the past year or so. Social media platforms and discussion groups seem to be awash with knowledge organisers and knowledge workbooks, and lots of techniques and strategies to recall, retain, retrieve and then write about knowledge. […]
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As part of making the judgement about the quality of education, inspectors will consider the extent to which schools are equipping pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Our understanding of ‘knowledge and cultural capital’ is derived from the following wording in the national curriculum: ‘It is the essential […]
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Reading the works of professional historians is one of the most rewarding ways of broadening students’ thinking about History. However, this can be a problematic undertaking! Historians will often present differing views on the same topic, leaving the reader bewildered as to what to believe. Nevertheless, thinking about seemingly differing arguments can be an enriching […]
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It’s been almost a month since the Historical Association Conference, and I am still feeling as high as a kite. I arrived in Chester on the Friday afternoon and after a walk round the Cathedral my daughter and I headed to the conference to have a nosy. I could not believe how many people were […]
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A new Ofsted inspection framework will be used with schools from September 2019. The four key inspection elements will be: quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management. Notably, the ‘outcomes’ element has gone and there is a clear shift in focus towards the way a school designs and implements its […]
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This year, the 6th June marks the 75th anniversary since the D-Day landings in 1944. Operation Overlord is one of those events in history which many students will have at least an understanding of what it was, but may not know the full picture. The 75th anniversary also gives us the opportunity to reflect on […]
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May brings lots of exciting opportunities, but the highlight of the calendar for me has to be the Historical Association Conference . This year it is taking place on the 17th-18th May in Chester – a city steeped in History, which should inspire your teaching from Key Stage 1 through to A Level. Every year, I doubt that the […]
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In 2018 we surveyed over 1,300 primary and secondary school teachers about their experiences of the Word Gap in schools and collated our findings in the Oxford Language Report . The report found evidence of a significant word gap in UK schools, an increasing problem which is holding back children’s learning. Following on from this research, we partnered […]
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The way AQA have included the Historic Environment (HE) study in their specification is an absolute gift to students and teachers. Rather than having an extra paper to think about, the HE is embedded seamlessly into the highly engaging British Depth Study units. Our department ‘sells’ this section of the course to our budding historians […]
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