S E Hartsmith History

It's that time of year where the edutwitter argument of whether you should do work in the Summer holidays or not arrives. Personally, if you are doing the display/planning because you want to, then go for it. I actually find it makes me feel more prepared and less stressed overall in September, and a resource or something that there is never time to prepare when teaching is made and helps throughout the year. Since becoming Head of Department this year, I knew we needed to look at our assessment for Years 7, 8 and 9. There was not a particularly robust way we were assessing our students, or one that followed some kind of consistency between assessments, year groups and teachers. We have seen the benefits of knowledge recall tests with our KS4/5 students, and wanted to roll this out to KS3. Also, based on discussions on Twitter, much talk is about how we engage students with the work of historians. Therefore, each assessment has a quote from a historian to consider their interpre

I was keen to get back from maternity leave, not because I didn’t like ‘mum life’ or time with my new friends at baby classes, but because I deeply longed for the ‘professional me’. I missed teaching, the camaraderie of colleagues, and the subject that I love, History. I kept myself busy when I struggled adjusting to motherhood in the first six months. Whilst my baby slept I made revision resources for all of our GCSE course. I used all 10 keeping in touch days, and I returned to work for the last month of the school year even though I had until September to be off.  This first year back has been hard, but so rewarding. I had to return full time and worried I would miss out on time with my child. However, I’ve taken on new responsibilities at work, which I have managed alongside watching my now 20 month old son flourish.  Here are some things I’ve learnt in my first year back from maternity leave: Time is never on your side; you become much better at prioritising Juggling t

As we all know, this time of year is so important for getting Year 11 engaged in their revision for their GCSEs. One part of this is ensuring they know and can recall key content, and retrieval practice is fundamental to this. During my lessons last week, the film Avengers: Endgame came up frequently to say the least! So I thought utilising this 'hype' would be one way of getting students to recall key knowledge. The idea of the task is pretty straight-forward, but there's six sets of three questions and each set they need to answer all of to 'gain an Infinity Stone' (yes, I even bothered to check which colour each stone represented!) Their aim is to collect all six Infinity Stones, to fill the Infinity Gauntlet, and wield their amazing knowledge on that particular topic. I'm hoping it gets Year 11 (and also Year 10 and 12 for their mock exams) interested through a relevant pop-culture reference! Linked here is the blank template, when I get around to populat

I think I'll write a more detailed blog post at some point regarding this, but yesterday I tweeted my new display which encourages students to extend their vocabulary with things like causation, adding evidence and avoiding the 1st person. Some asked for a copy so I thought I'd link it here for anyone rather than individually sending! How to write and speak like a historian PPT

The other day I posted on Twitter a Germany (Democracy to Dictatorship 1890-1945- AQA) set of exam question starters I was working on. Now I (think) I'm finished with them I thought I'd share them on here. The layout and wonderful idea came from @MrsJHistory who had made them for Elizabeth I. I loved the format and decided to make one for Germany.   The rationale is: To be a quick 'starter' activity- approximately 5 minute task The idea is to refresh their knowledge in a short space of time This should increase their confidence with a 'low-stakes' task, where most of what they need to answer the question is there for them (the key facts) Reinforces ' BUG' the question  with students Can be used the next lesson after content has been learnt, a starter whilst studying a different topic to aid recall from a while ago (I teach Germany at the start of year 10, so will use with my year 11s as we look at Power and the People in September), or even

Having been on maternity leave for a year, I've amassed lots of great ideas I want to try out in my teaching from Twitter, Teach Meet South Historians as well as my own thoughts. However I thought I needed to narrow them down with the aim of successfully implementing a few as the new term begins. Here are five ideas I am going to try from September. 1. Extracts from historians At the @TMSouthHistory Teach Meet back in June, @AndrewSweet4 discussed the importance of using works by historians in lessons for all age groups. A point that stuck with me is how can we expect students to write and speak like historians if they are not familiar with historical writing. It is therefore really important that they read what experts have to say on the subject they are studying.  To achieve this in lessons, I've started to collate a PowerPoint that has quotes by well-known historians such as Dan Jones, Mary Beard and Suzannah Lipscomb which link to topics we study. This does mean that