This brilliant article provides you with top tips on how you can easily diversify your history curriculum
Weaving greater diversity into the curriculum
Curriculum Planning
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,[…]
The Essential Guide to the HRC KS3 Curriculum
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
Enquiry Questions at Key Stage 3: A necessity not a luxury.
I am often late to the party. Fact. Sometimes I don’t even turn up. The curse of the socially awkward and the residue of an inferiority complex perhaps? I know I am very late to one particularly party but why change the habits of a life time? The party I[…]
Don’t tell me interpretations are too difficult for Key Stage 3
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[…]
Key Stage 3 curriculum map
Neil Bates and I have been working together from afar for many years. However, we are lucky enough to have been working together in the same school recently. We have used our frees carefully and have met once a week in the late Spring and early in the summer term,[…]
Catering for student curiosity outside the classroom
Advice on how to stimulate and cater for students’ curiosity about history outside the classroom – with reading list download.
Planning and teaching 9-1 GCSE to make learning stick
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[…]
Teaching the fight against domestic fascism in pre and post war Britain
I think I’ve been planning this set of lessons on the fight against domestic fascism since about 1988, when I first saw Celt-punk band, The Men they Couldn’t Hang perform their classic song, the Ghosts of Cable Street at the Lancaster Sugar House. Regular readers of our site will know that we have[…]
History Curriculum Planning: Creating the Big Picture of the Past
Creating the Big Picture of the Past. I sometimes dream that in 30 years time, some adults surveyed in tabloid newspapers will know that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. They will know that the Romans invaded England before the Vikings and they will flippin’ well know where[…]
