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 able to provide something that history teachers seem to want.

Like many of the best ideas, this new history teaching magazine came about after Aaron and I were chatting about loads of different stuff. The power of discussing things with a like minded colleague should not be under estimated.

We were talking about the fact that history teachers are brilliant on social media. There is lots of sharing of resources and ideas especially in Facebook groups.

However, we felt that social media can be a curse as much as a blessing. Mainly because there often isn’t enough space to really explain an idea or a concept or the thinking behind a unit of work.

Also we felt that history teachers are interested in history teaching and want to read about it. They want to read what their history teaching colleagues are up to.

It is not often that we can go and sit at the back of someone else’s classroom and observe their practice and borrow their ideas. Reading about this is the next best thing.

We also wanted to provide hard working history teachers with a platform to share their practical ideas. You know, the types of ideas that can be used the next day in the classroom.

There are thousands of hardworking history teachers out there, doing a great job quietly on their own. We wanted to help the silent majority by sharing history teaching ideas and offering all history teachers a platform on which they can speak and share their best practice.

Practical histories isn’t behind a paywall. The best history teaching ideas should be shared widely.

You can read more about our rationale here.

Contributors to Practical Histories

We have blessed with some excellent contributors. We are really grateful to all of those who have contributed to practical histories so far. If you felt that you had an idea for an article then please please please get in touch here. We would love you to contribute.

We would also love to hear your feedback about site.

Finally, would also love it if you contributed by joining in the discussion threads at the end of each article. You can discuss the article and share your thoughts and ideas here too.

We hope you enjoy practical histories as much as we have enjoyed creating it.

Happy History Teaching!