Using extracts from memoirs is a great way to enhance engagement, recall and learning for GCSE Germany
Using Memoirs to Enliven Your Germany Unit
GCSE
Mapping the Past: Using maps in the history classroom
I love using maps in the history classroom. I often joke about geography being all about colouring in maps, but in reality, I’m jealous. It might just be me, but I need to locate myself in time. The chronology of most things is an obsession. It might be the date[…]
6 Take Aways from Ofsted’s Report into History Teaching
Here are 6 takeaways from Ofsted’s 2023 report into history teaching.
New Migration unit for Edexcel coming very soon
A new Pearson / Edexcel migration unit is going to be published soon. Read the rationale and download the sample lesson.
Five minute tricks to make learning stick for the 9-1 GCSE
With the 9-1 GCSE there is more content to remember than there was with the older GCSE. Fact! We all need to develop short sharp ideas, or ‘tricks’ to make learning stick.
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.
Using enquiry to succeed at 9-1 GCSE history
I think I might be out of fashion. Come to think of it, on a sartorial level I have never been in fashion. But that is a digression. You see I have always been an advocate of enquiry based history. I gardened in Michael Riley’s enquiry garden way back in[…]
www.historyhomework.com is live
www.historyhomework.com is live and ready for you to access. You can use it to help your students revise all of the content and many of the skills required for the most popular Edexcel 9-1 GCSE courses. AQA will be launching in September. To find out which topics are covered[…]
Using knowledge to make meaning
The debate whimpers on. Knowledge and direct instruction against progress teaching ideas. This debate has been going on since the arguments over the birth of GCSE and before. Historical knowledge is crucially important – lets not forget it. But so is the ability to use this knowledge well. We have[…]
Please don’t ask year 7 to answer GCSE exam questions
Recently I arranged for Michael Riley to come and work with my initial teacher trainees and their mentors at Sussex University. What a privilege. After all, it was Michael alongside Jamie Byrom who inspired me to teach history the way that I have been for the last 18 years. A[…]
A Traveller’s guide to planning for success in the 9-1 GCSE
A Traveller’s guide to planning for success in the 9-1 GCSE: I have recently become fascinated by the history of the American West. There are so many great personalities and stories when you start to look. Visiting a number of these sites in the summer really made this history resonate[…]
Helping students to write the dreaded ‘narrative account analysing’ question
Struggling to answer Edexcel’s new narrative account analysing question? Here’s how one teacher tried to make the abstract concrete in her students’ brains.
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[…]
The problem with exam questions and teaching to the test
Over the last year I have been working hard creating resources for the new GCSEs. This has led me to look really carefully at many things: different topics, the details of the content, and the assessment approaches of the new GCSEs on offer. These exam questions can be predictable. Fact.[…]
How to run a successful revision information evening
Running a successful revision information evening. When we get to the weeks leading up to Easter revision season is upon us. In schools all over the land colleagues find themselves somewhere on the spectrum between being inundated with eager students to dragging them kicking and screaming to revision classes. There[…]
Strategies to improve grades in GCSE source evaluation
After marking our mock exams a few years ago something struck me. Our students were often failing to get high marks on questions about source evaluation (this was the source paper for OCR Modern World). After closer analysis of examiners reports, mark-schemes and student responses, I realised that we needed some[…]
How using Teacher in Role can raise engagement in the history classroom
I must admit that it is only this year, after 20 years of teaching that I have felt comfortable being a’teacher in role’. I don’t know why, but before I started working with Neil Bates this was something that I shied away from. But on my first day working at[…]
Join our new membership service
Over the last term we have been working very hard to support you by improving the way our site works. Lots of people have contacted us to ask if we offer a subscription or membership approach. We have listened and the answer is now, ‘yes we do’.
20 successful GCSE history teaching strategies
Twenty strategies for successful GCSE history teaching – this includes ideas on enquiry, revision and meta cognition. And our top 10 tips for great results.
What 2016 History GCSE offers the best approach to assessment?
What 2016 History GCSE offers the best approach to assessment? We offer you a simple comparison tool. You may well have already decided what you think the best course is for you and for your students. I have blogged about this before. But, just to remind you, I think you need[…]
Games for the history classroom / Make Knowledge Stick: Odd One Out
Make Knowledge Stick: Odd One Out Recently I have been working really hard to ensure that my GCSE students can recall information over longer periods of time. This is something that I admit, I never really used to think about. I would just teach in an enquiry based way and[…]
How will interpretations be assessed at GCSE in 2018?
How will interpretations be assessed at GCSE in 2018? Teaching historical interpretations at GCSE in 2016 will be more important than before. There is no getting away from this. As we stated in our last post, this has got be a good thing. After we really should be teaching students[…]
Teaching Historical Interpretations at GCSE
Teaching Historical Interpretations at GCSE. I am really, really pleased that Historical Interpretations has been placed at the heart of the 2016 GCSEs. After all, as Neil Thompson and Christine Counsell have stated, interpretations has always been the jewel in the crown of the Key Stage 3 concepts. Previously we[…]
The Board Race Game to enliven GCSE judgement questions
The best professional development I have ever had is to work alongside a creative colleague. Just by sitting down for 20 minutes and discussing your lessons for the next day can inspire ideas, or it can reveal fab teaching strategies that you never thought of. In my career I have[…]
New Year’s Resolutions for the history teacher
New Term here we come. Its been a great summer, much of which I have spent working on resources for 2016 GCSEs (more of which in another blog) I go back this week to a new role – Head of Humanities. Its been a long time since I have had[…]
Games for the history classroom: ‘Prove it’ ‘Challenge it’
We use this simple technique to check and cement learning and to deepen thinking. Playing games in the history classroom can be fun. We love ‘Prove it’ and ‘Challenge it’. As you probably know we are unashamed users of cards in lessons. Why? Well, this is because, if the cards[…]
Games for the history classroom: Stepping stones
As you know, we love to use games for the history classroom. Not only are games engaging and fun, they also help cement learning and make knowledge stick. This idea is simple yet highly effective. The unstoppable Neil Bates uses it when doing class revision for GCSE history. It is called[…]
Double continuums to sharpen student’s historical thinking
We would recommend that you sometimes use double continuums to sharpen your student’s historical thinking. This neat idea is really simple. We all want to make our students think more. And I have found over the years that many don’t actually like to think. So this neat idea has helped[…]
Creating overviews at GCSE
Do you teach a thematic study at GCSE? Of course you do. I would recommend that you start off with a tried and tested overview. Something that Alec Fisher and I perfected when we worked together for 10 years. We believed and still do, that if you start a course or[…]
GCSE exam technique placemats
One thing we know works in teaching students to do well in GCSE history exams, is preparing them to write well. Sounds so simple yet we often automatically think our students have this skill because they have arrived in year 10. Unfortunately, this assumption is often wrong!! So how do[…]
