Michael Fordham

I am a history teacher, and I write and speak about history education and the philosophy of education. If you would like to get in touch about my work then please email me, or use the links above to find out more about what I do.

Having grown up in Devon and Cornwall, I went to read history at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. After graduating I completed a PGCE at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge, where I remained for further postgraduate study, including the completion of a PhD with a thesis on history education supervised by Christine Counsell and Philip Gardner.

I taught history at Hinchingbrooke School and was Head of History at Cottenham Village College before taking an academic post at the University of Cambridge where I worked on international projects in Kazakhstan, as well as teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of history education, the history of education and the philosophy of education. I continue to be a tutor on the MSt in Advanced Subject Teaching (History) at Cambridge’s Institute for Continuing Education.

In more recent years I have focused on senior leadership roles at a school and Trust level. I was an Assistant Headteacher at the West London Free School where I took responsibility for the school’s liberal arts ethos, before moving to Inspiration Trust in Norfolk as Director of Initial Teacher Training and Subject Lead for history. In 2019 I moved to a school-based role in the Trust as Vice Principal (Academic) of Thetford Academy.

My scholarly work has been published in the fields of history education, the philosophy of education and medieval history, and I speak regularly for a variety of audiences, both nationally and internationally. I do occasional pieces of consultancy work for a variety of organisations, including exam boards, multi-academy trusts, universities and not-for-profit organisations. I was the Outstanding-Educator-in-Residence for the Singapore Ministry of Education in 2014, and received an Honorary Fellowship from the Historical Association in 2016. I sat on the Education Committee of the Royal Historical Society and was an editor of the journal Teaching History from 2010-2018.

My wider interests including hillwalking and mountaineering (I am a past-president of Cambridge University Hillwalking Club and a member of the Alpine Club), as well as learning German and the violin. I maintain a strong interest in medieval history, and I am a volunteer guide at Ely Cathedral.