One of the bigger myths surrounding OFSTED and others who observe lessons is that teacher talk needs to be curtailed to free students to learn. You often hear the wry comment that pupils come to school to watch us work. Teachers regularly complain that their lessons were criticised for too much teacher talk. All I [...]

Just uploaded new KS2 planner for the Anglo-Saxons showing how, if taught together with the Vikings you can save time and make the of work much more coherent and meaningful to pupils. Not much on the Scots or the Heptarchy, sorry Gove, but loads of rigorous yet fun activities on struggle between Saxons and Vikings [...]

Busily completing the resourcing of the killer activities to go with the planning for the new topic Spreading the Word. It is a response to the 2014 requirement to compare tow people in the same line of work separated by time. i have chose Caxton and Alexander Graham Bell-with the tiniest walk-on part for Tim [...]

For years able students had the opportunity to excel at Coursework, going well beyond the narrow confines of tediously mechanistic markschemes. Their work was often stunning. For many it enabled them to compensate for the unpredictability of the exams. no more it seems. even in its swansong years Controlled assessment still bites the very students [...]

Can you predict what they might be before looking at Guardian article on latest research from Cambridge Assessment.

www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/gallery/2014/aug/13/top-10-most-popular-history-topics-alevel-students

With the publication of last week’s GCSE results, and the backwash of disappointment in some centres, comes the inevitable search for a ‘fairer’specification. Often this has meant switching from SHP to MW or vice versa. More recently it has led some centrs to flirt with iGCSE in the hope of protecting themselves in a safe [...]

Now that the dust has settled a little I thought it helpful to put last week’s A level results in perspective. Here are a few useful comparative statistics
1. Entries were up, placing history in the top 5 subjects, just slightly behind chemistry
2. There was a slight dip in the number of A*s. Overall 5.5% achieved [...]

The new OFSTED handbook which asks inspectors to focus on pupils’ cultural development sets out what they are looking for. Big implications for history, as you can see

The cultural development of pupils is shown by their:
 understanding and appreciation of the wide range of cultural influences that have shaped their own heritage and that of others
 understanding [...]

Under new guidance issued to OFSTED inspectors last week,inspectors must now pay even greater attention to a school’s curriculum to ensure that it is appropriately broad and balanced to help prepare young people for life in modern Britain. It is very likely that the searchlight will be trained on the history curriculum in particular which [...]