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…

Historical reenactment is becoming a top-tier teaching tool in the countries of Southern Europe. In Spain specifically, this discipline is experiencing a boom as a heritage education method, particularly in informal settings. This article is the outcome of a qualitative research study of the results obtained from one hundred and fifteen educators…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The publication of the first German-language digital history textbook, "mBook: History for the Future" ("mBook: Geschichte fu¨r die Zukunft," Cornelsen Verlag, 2016), drew much critical attention. In 2018, the "mBook" was awarded the prize for best textbook in the "society" category by the Georg Eckert…

Reflecting on her efforts to improve her trainee's lesson conclusions, Paula Worth decided to brush up her own. A journey of self-evaluation led her to revisit the Cambridge Conclusions Project. Through its lens, she found her own lesson conclusions wanting. Worth examines the way in which the final episode of a history lesson needs to do a great…

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…

Based on a diachronic case study of history textbooks used in Slovak primary and secondary schools since 1918, this article discusses the roles biographies of historical heroes can play in school education. The case study analyses history textbook narratives about the medieval ruler Svätopluk published during three different political regimes,…

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…

This article explores the historical importance of argument and self-learning within the structure of liberal arts education and how these can be applied to the design of university and community college general education classes to help students develop skills in effective communication, critical thinking and self-learning. Research in classical…

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…