Are you using retrieval practice, dual coding and interleaving? How do you know they actually work? The evidence base is actually a little shaky.
Have we been blinded by the cognitive science?
Blog
Crime and Punishment at KS3: Using local history to whet students’ appetite for GCSE
Here Elena Stevens explains her rationale for planning and teaching Crime and Punishment at Key Stage 3.
Practical Histories magazine
I haven’t been blogging on HRC much recently. This is mainly because over the last 6 months I have been working with Aaron Wilkes to set up a new free online history magazine called www.practicalhistories.com. We have been overwhelmed by the positive response PracticalHistories has received. Its pleasing to be[…]
Three top tips for improving online learning for your students
Here are three top tips to help you set work that is engaging, will make your students think hard and help them make progress.
Barriers to teaching Wider World Histories (2)
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[…]
A rationale for teaching wider ‘world histories’ part 1
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[…]
15 Tips for Assessing at KS3
Assessment at Key Stage 3 has always been a challenge. And there always seems to have been a tension, a tug of war between doing what is right for the students, helping teachers assess the quality of their curriculum against doing what SLT require to please Ofsted and to report[…]
Assessment at Key Stage 3: The problems
Ever since I started teaching, assessment at Key Stage 3 has proven to be a thorny issue. National Curriculum levels were introduced way back in 1995. And, they were contentious, to say the least. Their abolition in 2014 should have been celebrated. Yet, according to the brilliant annual HA survey,[…]
Free online history tests and tasks during the Corona Crisis
Free use of HistoryHomework During the present crisis, we would like to offer you COMPLETELY FREE use of www.historyhomework.com for the next three months.YOU WILL NOT BE INVOICED OR TIED IN. We are a site created by teachers, for teachers and simply want to help. To sign up simply email[…]
Five New Year’s resolutions for SLT
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[…]
The dangers of whole-school curriculum planning days
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[…]
Are Curriculum ‘Statements of Intent’ worth it?
Ever since teachers got a whiff that Ofsted was no longer just interested in ‘outcomes’ but was now focusing on the ‘Quality of Education’ and the three ‘I’s, there seems to have been a debate about what curriculum intent actually is. In the summer, before the start of this new[…]
A new history teachers conference for the South
I am really excited to announce the first Grassroots History Conference on Saturday 18/1/20 at the University of Sussex. Why the need for a conference? I have worked in the South of England with loads and loads of history teachers over the years. There is some brilliant practice here. However,[…]
8 examples of big picture overviews
History teachers in England seem to agree that planning and teaching is best achieved through the Enquiry Question. And they are right to. A Rileyesque enquiry works (Riley 2000). Full stop! It is all very well to be looking for that killer enquiry question. But if you never show your[…]
What is all the fuss about? Rosenshine’s principles for instruction
Clearly many schools across the country have been sharing Rosenshine’s principles with their teachers during CPD sessions recently. Twitter is full of education guru’s retweeting how Rosenshine is the next best thing in education since sliced bread (or feedback, or metacognition). So what are these revolutionary principles for teaching? Well[…]
Don’t let the curriculum control your pedagogy
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[…]
So what is ‘powerful knowledge’?
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[…]
Ofsted’s research into the curriculum – a quick summary
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[…]
Free INSET / briefing: What do the proposed changes to the Ofsted framework mean for the history department?
On March 6th between 4.15 and 6 pm, at the University of Sussex, I am going to running a free briefing/workshop on: What do the proposed changes to the Ofsted framework mean for the history department? This will: unpack the 3 research projects Ofsted undertook in the area of ‘curriculum’[…]
How to plan a broad and balanced curriculum 4: What about substantive knowledge?
Thanks to the changes proposed by Ofsted to their framework and handbook, the history teacher should be thinking hard about curriculum planning. To be honest, the history department should always be thinking about curriculum planning as curriculum intent, implementation and evaluation as this is their core business. One essential aspect[…]
Ten tried and tested tips for teaching historical key terms
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[…]
An overview of the changes to the Ofsted framework
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[…]
What strategies work best to boost learning?
What strategies work best to boost learning? This is the million dollar question that teachers and students need to answer to so they can be successful at school/university/ in life. Here at HRC we believe that the knowledge required to do well in history – the substantive ‘stuff” and disciplinary[…]
The 10 lessons to learn from Ofsted’s 3rd curriculum report
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[…]
How to plan a broad and balanced history curriculum – sequencing learning (part 3)
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[…]
How to plan a broad and balanced history curriculum – part 2
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[…]
How to plan a broad and balanced history curriculum – part 1
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[…]
How do we decide what to teach in a curriculum: a blast from the past
So there seems to be some blather recently around the question: how do we decide what to teach in a curriculum? Ofsted This has inevitably be fuelled by talk of Ofsted changing its inspection framework over the coming months to focusing more on the quality of the curriculum and less[…]
Starting a new school (after 25 years) – a short survival guide
I often meet teachers who have this (to me) weird compulsion to get a job, do three years, move on to a new school, three years, move…and repeat. In the interests of full disclosure, I am not one of these people. I got a job in the mid-90s and[…]
Ten Top Tips for History Exam Revision
With exams looming, these activities and techniques can help history teachers ensure their students are geared up and ready to perform under pressure.
