History: a vehicle for moral enquiry?
What is history? For me, the discipline of history cannot be defined simply by its object of study – the past is, after all, studied in a wide variety of subjects including [...]
History Teaching
Beyond Levels Part Three: developing a mixed constitution
Assessment is always going to be an imperfect tool. Gaming the system will always be possible; students can cram for tests and then forget things that they really should [...]
Beyond Levels Part Two: summative and formative assessment
In my last post I commented briefly on why I thought task-specific mark schemes were more appropriate than ladder-like progression models for the assessment of pupil work. In [...]
Beyond Levels Part One: knowledge-rich and task-specific mark schemes
In my last post, I criticised the old National Curriculum levels or, more specifically, the 1991 Attainment Targets to which schools kept trying to revert. The ladder-like [...]
Levels: where it all went wrong
Levels are dead! Long live… well, what? I am quite a fan of the new 2014 National Curriculum for history. I very much wish that Michael Gove had been brave enough to do [...]
Lions led by donkeys?
The recent furore over how the First World War should be interpreted has, directly and indirectly, raised questions about how the period should be taught in schools. It is [...]
“Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs”
It has not escaped my notice that I have not yet had chance to return to my series of blogs on medium-term planning. Fear not! I intend to do so soon. I have decided, [...]
Why should pupils learn dates?
I doubt I invented the supermarket checkout date game, but I do not mind if someone wants to say I did. If you buy something for less than twenty pounds, then see if you can [...]
Medium-Term Planning 3: ‘Introductions and Conclusions’, not ‘Starters and Plenaries’
The way in which lessons begin and end is very important in medium-term planning, though sadly I think careful reflection on this was rather swamped in the rhetoric of the [...]
Medium-Term Planning Part 2: getting the question right
A brief browse through the pages of Teaching History from the last decade will show that one of the things that troubles history teachers most is ‘what is the right [...]
Medium-Term Planning 1: thinking through the process
This is going to be the first in a series of blog posts that looks at medium-term planning for history teachers. I write this with a number of aims in mind. With a new school [...]
In defence of the current history curriculum
In my previous post I reviewed Daisy Christodoulou’s book and promised to respond specifically to her critique of the current History National Curriculum. She argued [...]
Clio et cetera 