This article describes the account of a "European Queens" course as an example of the intellectual growth available to both the professor and the student when an instructor uses engaged, responsive teaching to address apparently incommensurable understandings of a given topic. The author outlines how the study of premodern queens relates…

In this article, Jessica Phillips returns to a theme explored in the Historical Association's publication "Exploring and Teaching Medieval History in Schools"--the challenge of teaching about the medieval past in ways that acknowledge its vibrant complexity and create a genuine sense of resonance rather than condescension or blank…

A group of adults, dressed in authentic medieval costumes, organize and stage a full-scale battle at a local park; weapons (made from foam), roles, and medieval speech are all part of the event. This is known as "Live Action Role Play" -- more commonly referred to as "LARP." Although many settings and scenarios have been used…

Dissatisfied by her previous enquiries on medieval kingship and inspired by Helen Castor's "She-Wolves," Elizabeth Carr sought to incorporate the stories of powerful medieval women such as Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine into her Key Stage 3 curriculum. Carr used these stories to highlight to her pupils the crucial substantive…

Klaus Mollenhauer (1928-1998) is one of the most important German theorists of education in the postwar era. Mollenhauer is often remembered in Germany today for his first book titled "Education and Emancipation: Polemical Sketches," but he received international renown for his final monograph, "Forgotten Connections: On Culture and…

Jacob Olivey set out to design enquiries which would enable his pupils to reconstruct, using evidence, the perspectives of people in the past. In this article he shares in detail the planning and outcomes of two enquiries: one for Year 7 and one for Year 8. Olivey offers a example of 'the curriculum as the progression model', considering how to…

Mythology tells about the character traits and relationships in human society. Topics are about tenderness, betrayal, motherhood, or the courage of love. In the visual arts, the mythological genre was formed in the Middle Ages; He painted legends and traditions. Images of ancient heroes and gods appeared in the pre-Christian period and occupied an…

While weighing up the relative merits of the competing narratives of the Battle of Hastings that his department might present to Year 7, Matthew Stanford began to consider how the causal models that teachers introduce influence the causal arguments that students later go on to write. In this article, Stanford shows how such realisations informed…

For quite some time, research on the use of the History of Mathematics in the classroom has confirmed a lot of academic benefits for students. However, the History of Mathematics can also be used as an inclusion tool in classrooms where there are foreign students because it allows working with the specific contexts of other cultures. This article…

Much has been written in recent years about how historical scholarship can be used to shape practice in the classroom. As an historian of the medieval period now working as an history teacher, Dhwani Patel offers a fresh perspective on these debates. During her PGCE year, Patel found herself reflecting on how the lenses and methodologies that…

In this article, Jacob Olivey describes his department's efforts to both diversify their Key Stage 3 curriculum and secure greater curricular coherence. Building on a large body of research and practice, Olivey sought new forms of curricular coherence through the selection and sequencing of substantive content across the curriculum. He reflects on…

The focus of this article is on the connection between education and the Hanseatic League, a topic largely neglected in educational literature, although the qualification needs of Hanseatic merchants had a remarkable influence on the development of German and European education. The Hanseatic League as a network between merchant families, friends…

Michael Bird and Thomas Wilson focus their attention directly on the voices of pupils, in dialogue with their teacher and with each other, as they draw inferences from differing sources about the Norman legacy in Chester. By carefully examining dialogue stimulated by these sources, Bird and Wilson demonstrate not only the role that prior knowledge…

Diane Relf was concerned by what felt like an unbridgeable gulf between Year 7's vocabulary and comprehension, and her aspirations both for their inclusion in history and their later academic success. As a subject leader without the benefit of any history-specific training at the start of her career, she embarked on a journey of intensive reading…

There are three basic strands to our lessons. How should we teach? What skills should we enable our students to build? What content should we use to deliver those skills? In this article Tony McConnell, who has been re-designing the curriculum in his school in response to a changed examination regimen, considers the issue of subject content. With…