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History In the NewsThe following area of the site is dedicated to linking the latest in current affairs to key areas of the history curriculum, bringing history to life and relating it to hot topics in the weeks news and on television. Included are: Royal SuccessionRecent discussion of the royal succession provides an opportunity to make the Bill of Rights and the Coronation Oath Act seem even more topical! So, if the first born had been female: >In 1509 Margaret Tudor would have taken the throne instead of Henry VIII
In the News: Vikings, raiders or traders? The latest evidenceThe discovery of the first fully intact Viking burial site in the UK (October 20th 2011) - on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Scotland provides a great opportunity for de-bunking some well known Viking myths. The 16ft-long grave containing the remains of a “high-status Viking” who was buried with an axe, a sword and a spear might suggest the typical Viking warrior image. About 200 rivets - the remains of the boat he was laid in - were also found. Previously, boat burials in such a condition have been excavated at sites on Orkney. Until now mainland excavations were only partially successful and had been carried out before more careful and accurate methods were introduced.
5 good reasons for thinking the Vikings were more traders than raiders.
Historical Association 2011 survey of state of History in Secondary schoolsWhereas the 2011 report recently published by the HA repeats many of the findings of the previous year’s survey, I was drawn to a number of comments about exam marking which I thought might be worth comment. When 40% of teachers had serious concerns about the accuracy of marking in GCSE history (compared with 30% last year) alarm bells start ringing in my head. How can this situation be allowed to continue? At A2 when the stakes are even higher, concerns are still strong with over a quarter of independent schools and a fifth of grammar schools expressing serious concerns. A larger number had concerns too, if less serious. Added together it makes very sorry reading. We can all enjoy new courses with interesting choices, but if we can’t rely on the marking how can we really enjoy the teaching? The Beatles and Civil RightsA document auctioned this week, shows how the Beatles gave their support for the US civil rights movement by refusing to play in front of segregated audiences. The contract for a concert held in 1965 at the Cow Palace in California, specifies that The Beatles "not be required to perform in front of a segregated audience". The year before they had also refused to perform at a segregated concert in Florida. The officials gave way, allowing the stadium to be integrated. "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now," said John Lennon. "I'd sooner lose our appearance money." The struggle for racial equality in America later inspired Paul McCartney to write Blackbird. Teaching Roman Britain at KS2 or the Roman Empire at KS3 then this new Free app is a must.Streetmuseum: Londinium, is a new mobile app from the Museum of London and the TV channel History and offers an original and exciting medium for exploring the city's history. Opening with an illustrative timeline of London's Roman heritage, the app then offers a map of the city, peppered with pins that highlight different historical aspects of life under Roman rule. The purple pins mark sites where archaeological discoveries were made. The fun bit is where you use your finger to 'dig' the dirt or blow on the microphone to unearth bits of pottery and other relics). The red pins mark audio and video material, drawn from History's large archive: for example, click on the amphitheatre to watch a video showing gladiators locked in combat. One of the more interesting things is the historical map that is included with the app. Move the slider along and the contours of Londinium, from the old walled part of the city and its various gates to long-lost geological features such as the River Fleet, are overlaid on the contemporary map, along with information about their use. Streetmuseum: Londinium is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, and is free. A recent re-appraisal of Civil Rights asks us to take the long view of Civil Rights and to question some of our cosy assumptions.I’ll quote just some brief passages from the review: http://hnn.us/articles/9-26-11/we-need-to-reassess-the-civil-rights-movement.html “Until very recently, the study of the civil rights movement has limited itself to the roughly ten-year span between the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and 1956 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The dominant figure is Martin Luther King Jr.; the dominant ethos is Christian nonviolent resistance. The terrain of battle is the South, primarily Alabama and Mississippi, but reaches as far as Topeka, St. Augustine, and Washington, D.C. The enemy is Jim Crow, that tight patchwork of state and local laws that segregated and disenfranchised blacks from white society. To either chronological side of this short era lies racism: white racism before, black racism after. The Ku Klux Klan before, the Black Panthers after”. "The narrative proved remarkably compelling, and the first wave of civil rights historians were all too willing to play along. Writers like Taylor Branch and Douglas Brinkley compiled valuable histories of King and Rosa Parks, the March on Washington and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But they ignored the allegedly new and militant black consciousness of the late 1960s, sidelining Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, not to mention Marcus Garvey and other earlier, more militant civil rights leaders—these were the fallen angels, cautionary tales. Such historians also ignored the issues that mattered—and still matter—to blacks inside and out of the Jim Crow South, and which were largely ignored during the movement’s classical era: equality in housing, health care, education, and jobs” “The black struggle was about more than just access to public accommodations and voting booths. It was, and is, a struggle for equal access to all the things that white America often takes for granted: safe neighborhoods, decent education, and a fair justice system, to name a few. That’s not to say that things remain the same. The classical era of civil rights not only brought real progress for African Americans, but also spurred a revolution in the status of other minority groups, from Hispanics to women to gays and lesbians. But dismal facts abound: Real income among blacks in Washington has not changed in thirty years, more black men are in prison than in college, and blacks have suffered significantly more by any metric during the Great Recession”. Czechs pay tribute to Woodrow WilsonThis news item will prove interesting to students studying Modern World GCSE courses. Seventy years after its destruction by Nazi troops, a memorial statue honouring President Woodrow Wilson will be rededicated on Oct. 5 in Prague, Czech Republic. The Wilson Monument commemorates the role that the former U.S. president played in helping the Czech people achieve independence in 1918, and it will stand as an enduring symbol of the historic friendship between the United States and the Czech Republic. The Czech people never forgot which country and which president did so much so secure their independence as a free nation. The rededicated Woodrow Wilson Monument honours a historic friendship that has stood the test of time. The original Wilson Monument, which stood in front of Prague’s main train station, was dedicated on July 4, 1928, by Americans of Czech and Slovak descent. During the Second World War it was destroyed by Nazi occupying forces. After Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Czech people commemorated the monument at its former site with a plaque on a small pedestal that promised that Americans of Czech descent would rebuild it. In 1948, the plaque was removed after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. Over the last 20 years US relations with Czechoslovakia have grown much stronger. This is a good example of how you can look at events over 80 years showing a. The birth of new countries after the Treaties of 1919-20 Do you teach Jack the Ripper at GCSE?If so, you will have been interested in the recent revelation that featured on the BBC website a couple of weeks ago. More than 200 suspects have been named. But to Ripper expert Trevor Marriott, a former murder squad detective, German merchant Carl Feigenbaum is the top suspect. Read more and see the e-fit image here. Connected HistoriesMillions of historical records have become more accessible to the public today (4 April 2011). Connected Histories provides a single point of access to a wide range of distributed digital resources relating to early modern and nineteenth-century British history. The site can be found at http://www.connectedhistories.org/ At the click of a mouse you can find evidence for virtually any topic in British history; whether royal weddings, parliamentary reform movements, famous criminals, or the lives of plebeian Londoners.
New Civil Rights sources: Thurgood MarshallRecent publication of a collection of letters from the heyday of the Civil Rights protest offers a new portrait of Marshall as an important force in the Civil Rights movement. Thurgood Marshall is perhaps best known as the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court, where he served from 1967 to 1991. But he had a long history of working for justice. As an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he waged legal battles against racial discrimination which helped reshape American society. Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership of the black boycott of the city’s public transportation system are widely acknowledged as pivotal events in the civil rights struggle. But well before that, a young attorney with the NAACP laid the groundwork for the movement’s success. Braveheart battleground to win iconic status
The long shadow of the Treaty of Versailles. Italy’s anniversary celebrations highlight divide after 150 years.The anniversary of Italy’s unification has exposed long-running regional tensions and recalled Metternich’s dismissive observation that Italy was nothing more than “a geographical expression”. The biggest dampener on what is meant to be a joyous festival of national pride has come from the German-speaking, autonomous province of South Tyrol, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until it was ceded to Italy at the end of the First World War. The president of South Tyrol said he wants nothing to do with the celebrations on March 17, the day in 1861 when parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II the first king of Italy. “I hold nothing against Garibaldi (one of the main architects of unification) but for us the anniversary represents something else and recalls the separation from the motherland of Austria. “German speakers have nothing to celebrate. In 1919 we were not asked if we wanted to become part of Italy and for this reason we won’t take part in the celebrations,” he said. What causes revolutions?
What if John F Kennedy had lived another 50 years?
Holocaust ArchiveGoogle has partnered with Israel’s Yad Vashem museum, to help digitise the largest collection of Holocaust photos and documents in the world, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The search giant is working with the Jerusalem-based archive to properly index and store in Google’s cloud 130,000 photographs, some of which are currently available on Yad Vashem’s website, but until now have been difficult to locate and discover online. Bloody SundayFamilies of people killed on Bloody Sunday are to seek the prosecution of soldiers responsible for the deaths. Thirteen people died when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march in Londonderry in January 1972. A fourteenth died later. The Saville Report, published last year, found that the dead and injured were innocent. The 39th and final march took place in Derry last Sunday. A number of options are now being considered to mark future anniversaries, including an annual gathering of remembrance at the Bloody Sunday monument, a remembrance Mass, a human rights weekend and an annual Bloody Sunday lecture. Birth of first carNo one called for a holiday, but last weekend officially marked the birth of the automobile industry. For the record, it was 125 years ago that an inventive German named Carl Benz applied for a patent from German officials on January 29, 1886, for a vehicle driven by a small engine. “This marked the birth of the automobile. Mercedes-Benz has since had around 80,000 pioneering inventions patented,” the carmaker notes on its website. While some historians might disagree, Daimler AG is fully prepared to support its claim to laying the foundation for the modern automobile industry that reaches every corner of the world today. It can back up its claim with the patent, which was eventually issued to Benz by German authorities and launched Mercedes-Benz. “There is a little bit of Mercedes in every car built in the world today,” Daimler AG chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche observed during an appearance at the recent North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
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The Treaty of Versailles and the last reparations payment
A full 92 years later Germany has finally paid the last of its reparation payments decided at the Treaty of Versailles. The payment date, which coincides with the 20th anniversary of Germany's peaceful reunification, will quietly close the last chapter of a conflict that arguably did more than any other to shape the nation's future. To read more go to The Independent’s article which makes some interesting observations such as,
“Germany's reparations bill was set at the then mind-boggling figure of 269 billion gold marks before it was reduced to 112 billion gold marks, payable over 59 years, during the 1920s.
Germany suspended payments during the Great Depression and Hitler refused to continue them when he came to power in 1933. But, in 1953, West Germany agreed to honour its Great War reparation obligations. Communist East Germany, however, declined. It was agreed that Germany should be allowed to wait until it was reunited before paying some 125 million euros in outstanding interest on foreign debt accrued after 1945. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 followed by Germany's reunification less than a year later fulfilled the conditions of the agreement.”
The Battle of Britain. How much do we really owe to the Few?
It is hard to imagine that many of your pupils and students, returning in September, will not have picked up on the hype surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. You might like to ask them why they think it was so significant. They will probably, at some stage, refer to ‘the few’, or ‘Britain standing alone’ against the threat of Nazi invasion in the summer of 1940 (note Mr. Cameron!). But is this the view we want them to have? Consider the following:
1. In the summer of 1940 Britain was not alone. She was supported by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, to name but a few parts of our mobilising empire.
2. Fighter Command was a multinational crew.
3. We had the world’s largest navy at the time, supported by a huge merchant fleet as Richard Overy points out in his History Today article (Vol.60 issue 9, September 2010)
4. It wasn’t just the Few that Churchill himself referred to in his speeches. As Overy points out , Churchill devoted a lot more of his famous lines to the bomber crews than he did to Fighter Command
5. We had one of the most advanced industrial economies in the world and knew a bit about finance too
6. Above all, argues Overy, the ones who suffered most 70 years ago were the civilians, 27,000 of whom died between July and December 1940. There were 544 fighter crew deaths.
Where does that leave the ‘Few’ asks Richard Overy. His answer is:
“ Fighter Command was only one of the only areas of Britain’s war effort that was up to the mark in 1940 and the successful stand-off against the Luftwaffe was no mere fluke. The popular recollection of the sacrifice made by the pilots of Fighter Command is a worthy one because they were the ones that made sure the system worked. There are now three major monuments to those who fought and died in the Battle of Britain.. Perhaps it is time for a monument to the ‘many’, the thousands of civilians who perished and the hundreds of thousands who donned uniforms and badges and became the warriors of Britain’s home front.”
New history resource for Key Stage 2 pupils - Relic: Guardians of the Museum game
This interesting new resource is an interactive game which asks children to become guardians of a museum. It is a collaborative venture between the BBC and the British Museum so production values are high and you can trust the content. First they have to find the relics by simply moving a mouse across a museum. When they have located them a short film about 2-3 minutes long takes the children back in time, often explaining things about interesting objects very clearly and engagingly. To return the object to the museum the pupils have to answer a simple question before embarking on their next voyage. The simple closed question they need to ask is the most limited part of the game and not very inspiring but the films are good. mFor Ancient Egypt there are 3 films of relics in ascending order of value in my opinion. The first deals with mummification in good detail; the second the bust of Rameses and the third the Rosetta Stone. Other areas of the curriculum are covered in the shape of the Saxon Sutton Hoo ship burial and silver on the Spanish Main. For more able and interested pupils there are also culturally enriching journeys to find a game at Ur or a Benin plaque or a Chinese tomb.
What have the Normans ever done for us? Apart from popular baby names?
In case you just might be on holiday thinking about other things than teaching the Normans to Year7 in September, you might be interested to look at the following link to the BBC website on your return. When exploring the legacy of the Normans the article focuses on babies’ names which might be a useful hook for some pupils. Series begins tonight 4.8.10.
Rediscovered letters reveal how David Cameron’s ancestor mercilessly suppressed the Indian Mutiny.
An interesting way of linking past with present. William Low, David Cameron’s great-great-grandfather, left behind accounts of how he cut down rebels with a sabre and almost lost a hand and an ear in combat. He also participated, according to the Sunday Times, in a mass hanging of civilians. Peter Marshall emeritus professor of imperial history at Kings College London admitted that “It is not easy to explain away the hangings. By the context of international law, which they didn’t have then, it was a war crime. Retaliation during the Indian Mutiny was pretty indiscriminate”. Is it any wonder that Cameron invited India to set aside its colonial past and forge a new relationship with Britain last week?
Stuart stamps; a question of significance
This week the Royal Mail issued another in its series of stamps featuring British monarchs. The latest is the Stuarts, including the House of Orange. Accompanying the stamps is a potted biography of each monarch. It would be an interesting exercise in comparing historical interpretations for pupils to take one monarch each, write a biography in just 100 words explaining their SIGNIFICANCE, and then compare with the Royal Mail’s attempt here. You might even ask pupils to work out which Stuart monarch deserves to go on the highest value stamp and who on the lowest. This is the sort of activity you might have done using the Longman Changing Minds book. Now we have a real context. You might also ask pupils which developments or people of this period deserve a stamp all to themselves. The Royal Mail’s choice was: Sir William Harvey; Sir John Vanburgh; John Milton and the battle of Naseby - the bloodiest battle England has ever fought.
Even better Timelines.tv
A new re-launched version of Timelines.tv was launched today. You will find it at www.timelines.tv. If you don’t already know it, don’t waste any time getting there. If you do, and use it in the classroom, then you’ll be delighted to know that there is now a full-screen facility. You will also find whole films not just brief clips which some found too bitty to use effectively. There is also a brand new timeline-Smallpox through time, broken down into 13 separate videos!
Who ever thought that kids would be hearing about the 1832 Reform Act on national news?
With all the recent interest in Nick Clegg, this might be a good time to talk to your students about the nature of democratic change and the importance of key milestones on that journey. But how significant (that word again) was the 1832 Reform Act? Does it deserve to be called GREAT? David Aaronovitch picks up the theme in his Times column yesterday 20.5.2010.
The unconscious elements began with the Mourinho-like grandiosity of the comparison of his reform programme with that of the 1832 Great Reform Bill which, according to Mr Clegg, was the work of “politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests. Who stood up for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few.”
Well no, actually. Though I am a big fan of the 1832 Act, it gave the vote to only 16 per cent of the male population. The politicians who passed it then spent a proportion of the next 35 years steadfastly resisting further change, in particular the demands of the People’s Charter. The Chartists, with their petition for universal (male) suffrage, secret ballots, payment of MPs, equal-sized constituencies and recall, got precious little change out of the late Whigs and early Liberals. Hence Labour.
50 Years on – the Pill that brought freedom
If you are teaching OCR Britain 1955-75 or Edexcel’s Modern USA option, or AQA’s The changing role and status of women, you might be interested in today’s news.
An article in today’s Times commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
introduction of the contraceptive pill, opens up the debate about the sexual
revolution once again. The aims behind its introduction:
1. Strengthen marriage
2. Combat poverty
3. Generate happiness
4. Eliminate unwarranted pregnancy
were not achieved, argues Alexandra Frean.
But it did bring benefits: it gave women the opportunity for economic independence and ‘opened up careers that their mothers could not have dreamt of’.
Claudia Goldin , Professor of Economics at Harvard points out the changes the Pill brought. “In the late 1960s the median age of marriage was 23. In the next 7 years it went up to almost 26. That’s enough time to enable a women to get that law degree or MBA or complete her medical training".
The article also has a commentary from Sheer Hite who describes her reaction to the Pill’s introduction:” It seemed to have been made for single women just starting out, women in their 20s or 30s who wanted to experiment....But she adds “Today I rue the days I took the Pill. It was wonderful and horrible, symbolic of the extremes of the 1960s, and of the difficulties that women still face”. Discuss!
Katyn Massacres 20.4.10
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk met in an attempt to heal a bitter historical wound that still sours relations between the two countries when they attended the Katyn massacre memorial. It was the first time that a Russian leader had attended a commemoration of the slaughter, which followed in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland in 1939.
For years the Soviet Union refused to accept any responsibility for the murders, preferring to blame the Germans, and, as a post-war Soviet satellite state, Poland had to endure galling communist propaganda that absolved Moscow of any guilt.
It was only during the Gorbachev era that the Soviet Union admitted it had killed the Poles, but even then Poland remained frustrated by what it regarded as the Kremlin's stonewalling tactics when it came to full access to documents on the massacre.
Many students are likely to ask for your views on the issue and may need their curiosity satisfying in relation to Britain’s role. After all, Britain was a war-time ally of the Soviet Union.
Norman Davies who currently teaches in Poland gives a useful summary in his magisterial work Europe. He explains how Stalin ordered the NKVD to shoot 26,000 Allied POW captured during German-Soviet operations in that area of Poland in September 1939. These were largely reserve officers who were herded in small groups, shot and then placed into mass graves.
In June 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin signed an alliance with the exiled Polish government. Not surprisingly, the Poles were keen to ask the Soviets whether they had any news of the missing officers. Naturally the Germans were blamed.
In April 1943 during the Warsaw Ghetto rising, Nazi authorities in Poland released newsfilm of 4,500 murdered Polish officers unearthed at Katyn. For two years the Germans kept insisting it was a Soviet crime; the Soviets said it was the result of Nazi provocation.
All this was embarrassing for the British government. Whilst playing host to the Polish government London was still deeply committed to an alliance with Stalin. Every effort was made to suppress facts about Katyn in Britain. Official agencies encouraged belief in the Soviet version. Wartime censorship kept contrary files out of circulation. Even in peacetime there was little improvement. Throughout the Cold War Polish emigres in London were forbidden to attend services of remembrance.
It was only in 1990-1 that Soviet responsibility was confirmed, in part under Gorbachev and then in full under Yeltsin. Norman Davies believes that in the last half-century ‘Katyn’ offered a litmus test for the professional honesty of historians and their grasp of the realities or Brtiain’s alliance with the Soviets. It was the issue which forced commentators to choose between the growing weight of evidence that it was an NKVD massacre and the self-serving statements of the victorious Western and Soviet governments. Those who tell the truth stood to be dismissed as unscientific.
Primary curriculum ditched
Many of you primary teachers who were out of the country just after Easter will possibly have missed the news of the House of Common's rejection of the Children's Bill on 7 April. Without going into the politics of this, ( for which see my blog!), you will be devastated to learn that all the planning you have been doing might have to be reconsidered. I had always taken a moderate approach to revising the planning as you can see from the new introductions. I am glad for your sake, that I did. You can still access the old curriculum materials as well as the new ideas. In my view many of the improvements to curriculum design introduced ahead of the new curriculum in 2011 will happen any way - because they made perfect sense.
Just how far has OFSTED raised the bar with its new inspection arrangements?
The first six months of Ofsted’s new inspection regime has seen a near doubling in the proportion of schools judged “inadequate” while the proportion rated “outstanding” has more than halved. Secondary schools saw the biggest drop in “outstanding” judgments from 22 to 9.5 per cent.
The findings of an analysis by the TES of all school inspections published between September and the end of February show that only 9.2 per cent of schools have been given the watchdog’s top rating, compared with 19 per cent under the old regime.
The proportion of schools put in special measures, or given formal notices to improve, has grown from 4 per cent to 7.5 per cent.
OFSTED is likely to argue that the shift in proportions is partly due to its decision to focus on poorer schools and increase the gap between inspections for schools previously judged “good” or “outstanding”, from three to five years. It may of course be another example of OFSTED’s confusing and unnecessary tinkering. Could the nature of short notice inspections also be influencing the grading?
All this has interesting implications for those of us who are heavily involved in CPD focussing on moving teachers from good to outstanding. If OFSTED are constantly modifying the criteria how does that help teachers to focus on specific areas of improvement.
I started inspecting for OFSTED in September 1993. At that stage there were five grades. Then we went to seven then four. If OFSTED can’t get it right, what chance have schools got of trying to read their minds? If OFSTED had all our confidence and were the most expert in their field we could all take the criticism. But they aren’t. Too many inspectors simply stick slavishly to the criteria which never stay the same one round of inspection to the next.
I have always argued that departments are far better to create their own criteria for outstanding, informed, naturally, by the best they have taught, seen, read or heard about. How much more invigorating than poring over slight nuances in the way criteria are described. Even for those of us who spend their professional lives helping teachers teach better, working with OFSTED criteria can be like picking up mercury with a fork. You read what the criteria say, then you see it exemplified in their reports and realise that there are many inconsistencies in the way that the criteria are applied. Ultimately, a professional judgement needs to be made.
So, why do 22% of lessons judged as outstanding suddenly become 9%? It defies all logic, unless as OFSTED will probably claim the sample is vastly different. If so we need to be told, loud and clear!
The new primary curriculum guidance has landed
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The document introducing you to the
new primary curriculum has now been published. It can be found
here. As with so much of this literature it is full of
high-flown rhetoric but short on practical examples. We are promised these over the year in advance of implementation in September 2011. I will keep you fully informed as exemplification emerges. In
terms of history’s place in the new primary curriculum, you can
change as much or as little as you like. Getting your history curriculum in good shape In advance of implementation you might like to ask yourself some important questions which will give you an insight into your own readiness to teach the new curriculum from September 2011. Go to the Hot Topics section of the site for some suggestions. |
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In the News Archive
October- November 09 - items of old news including: OFSTED Chief Inspector’s report (24.11.09); Teaching OCR Modern World Iraq War? (25.11.09); Key day in German history – 9th November (10.11.09); New website on the History of Scotland (5.11.09); Remembrance Day (4.11.09); BBC production (4.11.09); Victory at last in the battle to identify Bosworth Field (29.10.09); Cambridge primary review gives thumbs up for history (16.10.09); History under the Tories (7.10.09); How long do your pupils spend studying the Holocaust? (5.10.09)
August-September 09 - including: The true state of history in our schools? (13.9.09); Fall of Communism. History made on the hoof (12.9.09); More on the Nazi Soviet Pact (12.9.09); All six books on the Man Booker shortlist are set in the past (10.9.09); Berlin 1936. The new film’s poignant timing and what it tells us about Nazi Germany (3.9.09); Interpretations of the Nazi-Soviet pact (2.9.09); Evacuation remembered 70 years on (2.9.09); Fantastic new on-line newspaper resources (23.8.09); A level results (21.8.09); Fewer students studying history is an alarming trend (13.8.09); Are you responsible for producing a generation of history numbskulls? (13.8.09)
April-June 09 - including Hitler didn’t twitter: the danger of lazy analogies (10.6.09); Edexcel’s SHP new history of warfare module: sample materials (12.5.09;) The final Rose Review: the future of the past (30.4.09); Update on the fate of history in the Primary Curriculum (7.4.09); Numbers opting for history: OFSTED's latest figures. How well do you recruit? (7.4.09); IRA and terrorism (5.4.09)
March 09 - History and the Diploma: update (30.3.09); Rose review update (26.3.09); Teaching GCSE History of Medicine? Know about the new website? (24.3.09); Teaching Empire; How do they do it in India? (12.3.09); New resources for teaching Life in Britain since the 1930s (11.3.09); Have you visited the Historyfaculty.com? (10.3.09); Resources for teaching the American West (10.3.09)
January 09 - including A spare turban in the cockpit? What are your students’ views of a typical World War two fighter pilot? (16.1.09); Slow down conclusions, complicate questions, make hasty judgements harder(16.1.09); A National Museum for France? (16.1.09); Using topical news in your history lessons (4.1.09) Who do you think won the vote as Top Russian of all time in last week’s poll? (7.1.09); Capitalising on the topical (2.1.09)
December 08 - including Charles I and yesterday's Queen' speech (4th December 2008); Obama; Henry VIII's love letters online; New interpretation of the sinking of the Mary Rose; Do we need another New Deal? and Taking Liberties; Questioning Munich: which questions do we ask?; Interim Report of the Rose Review 8.12.08; New Empire Museum for London in 2011; 1066 - and all that - reaches the big screen.
November 08 - old items of news, including Channel 4 drama on the English Civil War starting 19 November and Boy in the striped pyjamas.
October 08 - including Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum, 25 July 2008; Lullingstone Villa exhibition - Roman gambling uncovered; Changing size and significance of English towns; Creating your own Imperial theme park of Ancient Rome
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