September 2023 It feels very strange sitting at home typing this blog on the first day of the new school year, knowing that after 30 years in the History classroom, I am not sitting in a school hall listening to the exam feedback and Headteacher’s (sometimes un)inspiring vision for the year. Instead, I am embarking on a new journey, balancing part time teaching at Park View school, with the Direc...
Read More »In anticipation of this year’s summer conference we wanted to share the absolutely fantastic plenary from last year’s virtual event by the brilliant Jason Todd: “Silences, Traces and Voices: Conversations and Journeys Through Race”. In the film Jason makes the case, drawing on the work of the Jamaican-born intellectual Stuart Hall and Haitian academic Michel Rolph Trouillot...
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Well another summer has passed. Children are finally wrestled back into new shoes and too-big uniforms (a traumatic story from our Tuesday!). I don’t know about you but, despite all the work a new year involves, I always find September exciting. It is especially exciting when the cooler notes of a September morning are mixed in with the distinct hints of change. We don’t yet know where educa...
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The Curriculum PATHS – PATHfinders blog posts build on our mission to encourage and support history teachers in their work to creating empowering history curricula for their pupils. We hope that the PATHfinders updates, and our Principles for History Teaching will support and inspire teachers in their efforts to bring complex but vital historical issues and topics into the classroom. In ...
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2028 is set to be the start of a significant few years for education. New GCSEs will begin to arrive in 2029 and 2030 , followed by new A Levels in 2031 and 2032. These new qualifications will be preceded, in September 2028, by the arrival of the first new National Curriculum in 14 years! As we have written about before, a small team from the Historical Association is currently working with the Df...
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Well, it feels like spring has well and truly sprung over the last week. It’s a strange juxtaposition to be enjoying the emerging snowdrops and daffodils given the state of the world at the moment, but if nothing else it reminds me that spring at least brings the hope of renewal. The theme of renewal of course runs strongly through the changes which are on the way in the revised National Cur...
Read More »The Schools History Project recently wrote to the Historical Association and the Department for Education to share our thoughts on the composition of the drafting team for the History curriculum. A copy of the email is at the end of this document. Last week, Alex Ford and I met with Amerjit Basi, the Team Leader for Humanities at the Department for Education to discuss the issues that we raised. O...
Read More »The Schools History Project recently wrote to the Historical Association and the Department for Education to share our thoughts on the composition of the drafting team for the History curriculum. A copy of the email is at the end of this document. Last week, Alex Ford and I met with Amerjit Basi, the Team Leader for Humanities at the Department for Education to discuss the issues that we raised. O...
Read More »
The Curriculum PATHS – PATHfinders blog posts build on our mission to encourage and support history teachers in their work to creating empowering history curricula for their pupils. We hope that the PATHfinders updates, and our Principles for History Teaching will support and inspire teachers in their efforts to bring complex but vital historical issues and topics into the classroom. In our ...
Read More »
A very warm ‘hello’ from Curriculum PATHS at the start of the 2025/26 academic year. Exploring possibilities As we enter into the landscape of curriculum review, a new Ofsted framework, and potential exam reform, all against the backdrop of a growing far right threat across the globe, we know that a space for history teachers to engage with and discuss the role of school history is mor...
Read More »Inspired by my summer reading (Bell Hooks’ Teaching to Transgress’ and John Harris’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed, A story of love and connection in 10 songs’), it’s been a summer of reflection. Two years into my Directorship, it felt like it was a good time to take stock and ponder on what has gone well so far and where we can take the Schools History Project in the future. There certainly have been some v...
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