Should exam questions be predictable?
I have over the last half term started teaching a Year 11 class for the first time in a couple of years, and I am reminded of just how much work has to be done on teaching [...]
History Teaching
How do GCSE History source questions need to change?
It was never going to be long before the tabloid press picked up on the new GCSE History sample assessment materials: history is always the most controversial subject on the [...]
Why do GCSE and A-Level exams get it so horribly wrong?
As GCSE and A-Level reforms come into reality over the next year, I am left reflecting on the latest stage in a story that has been developing in England for over two [...]
Why don’t we have set texts in history?
Short extracts of sources or interpretations have been a feature of history exams for decades, and, I would argue, they have never been done well. For those unfamiliar with [...]
Be not afeared: criticality and the teaching of history
I suspect most readers will have seen the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. One of the early parts of the performance involved our green and pleasant land being [...]
Using multiple-choice questions
A few years ago I would have completely rejected the idea that multiple-choice questions were in any way useful in history lessons, and I still have reservations. I have [...]
Making History Stick Part 3: using the question effectively
In this sequence of blog posts I am taking some of the principles with which Brown, Roediger and McDaniel concluded their book Make It Stick and asking how these might apply [...]
Making History Stick Part 2: Switching the scale between overview and depth
Brown, Roediger and McDaniel clearly state that, even once some knowledge is mastered, it needs to be recalled periodically (every few weeks or months) under the ‘use it or [...]
Make History Stick Part 1: principles
This is a small adventure for me. My knowledge of cognitive psychology is weak, and I make no claims to having any expertise in the field: when it comes to disciplines, I am [...]
Teach Now! History: a review
It is always exciting when a new book comes out on history teaching, and I was therefore keen to get my hands on a copy of Mike Gershon’s new book Teach Now! History, part [...]
Why Hitler and Henry, and not Wallenstein and Anne?
For many years now, politicians, the media and plenty of teachers have complained about the narrow scope of GCSE and (to a lesser extent) A-Level exams in history. In [...]
A reading list for the new history curriculum
The summer holiday is coming into sight, and, no doubt, history teachers across the land are beginning to think about their reading lists. I thought I’d take this [...]
Ofsted and the history curriculum
I think that all children should be taught a broad history curriculum. I am happy to negotiate what this means, but I think the new National Curriculum gets the balance about [...]
New Curriculum Part 3: planning for progression from KS3 to GCSE
I recently wrote about why it makes sense for schools to think about their history curriculum in terms of a ‘five-year plan’ in which what is learned in Key Stage 3 [...]
New Curriculum Part 2: just how big a change is the new GCSE History?
Answer: it’s a big change. You may want to look at the outline for the new GCSE History from the DfE here before reading this post. Some of it is quite complicated and [...]
New Curriculum Part 1: planning for the new five-year history curriculum
A typo, surely? Everyone knows that a GCSE course is taught in a period ranging from one to three years, depending on how intensively you teach it, and Key Stage 3 is taught [...]
Are we training pupils to be historians?
This is a question that gets banded around in education quite a lot. It is quite common – and I have done it many times myself – to tell pupils that they are historians, [...]
Clio et cetera 