S E Hartsmith History

On Saturday 7th March 2020 I went 'up North' to Sheffield to @TMHistoryIcons for the first time. Luckily this managed to happen before coronavirus got in the way. I've been trying to go since it started but unfortunately it was always scuppered by acute morning sickness, then grappling with motherhood, then my own nerves about heading to an event on my own. I finally bit the bullet to go and even put myself forward to present, which I was lucky enough to do. It turned out to be one of the highlights of my History teaching career so far. It was fantastic to meet so many fellow teachers who I've known for years on Twitter and have influenced my practice, and they were just as wonderful and crazy as I'd imagined! I took so many ideas and food for thought (not just the great buffet!) away from everyone's presentations, and I really appreciated the warm feedback I received from my peers on my little presentation too. I've decided to type up my presentation to ta...

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 J...

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 ...

September 2018's edition of BBC History Magazine presented the results of the '100 Women Who Changed The World' poll. Here's the link to the list of 100, along with expert opinions and public reactions:  https://www.historyextra.com/100-women/ I am in the process of sorting out the displays for my classroom, to make it feel like mine again after returning from maternity leave, and thought this was a great thing to turn into a display for students to learn from, and also discuss the poll itself. Using @missgeog92  's idea of the 'Hello, my name is...' badges, I put together the display. Linked below are both the PowerPoint and PDF version of the display (The font in 'Submarine Beach'- you won't need to download if you use the PDF, but can download or change the font on the ppt). 100 Women PDF 100 Women PPT (Please excuse the rough edge on the board- need to order border roll on 1st September!)

Last Saturday (23rd June 2018) I took the hour drive from Wiltshire down to Poole High School for the first ever @TMSouthHistory teach meet, masterminded by @Jmosley_history . I was really excited to be able to attend a teach meet for historians that was much more local than most, which usually seem to be London or further North. On Twitter it was clear that a lot of time and effort had gone in to building up #TMSouthHistorians, so was looking forward to hearing some great ideas, and even doing a short presentation myself ( 5 a day revision linked here ). I took my trusty bullet journal with me to note down the fab teaching and learning practice, and thought I’d write up just a few of them here. I have tried to link as many Twitter handles as I can to the wonderful ideas. Quick wins The day kicked off with 1 minute quick wins, where 10 ideas were shared. I spoke about Historical Guess Who, which I will upload resources to in another post. Just a few of these ideas were: Using r...

Hi there! I'm a History teacher in Wiltshire, England. My twitter handle is @sehartsmith This weekend I attended the inaugural @ TMSouthHistory  teach meet in Poole. I was asked to present an idea for a 10 minute sharing is caring session, which I nervously agreed to, especially as I have been on maternity leave the past school year! I actually really enjoyed presenting, and people had really nice things to say about my Historical 5 a day revision. I thought I'd create this blog to share this, and hopefully continue as I return to work next week. (photo from @MalCPD on Twitter) Whilst on maternity leave, I decided to keep my 'professional self' in the loop and thought about creating a resource to aid GCSE revision (we teach AQA). I came up with the '5 a day', where students revise content under 5 areas: Key people and terminology Chronology Context Source analysis Plan your answer   An example of a 5 a day on the Elizabethan Golden Age All ...