Category: Subject development

Teaching a history of mental health to improve thematic understanding in a packed curriculum

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Following on from our work that featured in TH 173 about teaching a history of people with disabilities, we have focused our recent development work on resources for teaching about mental health in the past. Here are the resources that we presented in our session at the HA conference in Chester in May 2019. This work is ongoing and we are also working with colleagues in the Netherlands. It would be great if other people would like to get involved.

Resources are provided here for a single lesson with the EQ: How differently have people viewed mental health?

We have a moral duty to reflect the diverse past in our classrooms and the Equality Duty Act of 2010 requires us to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimization, advance equality of opportunity between different groups and foster good relations between different groups. Respecting the past of everyone is part of fostering this.

From this lesson we want students to learn that:
• Mental health has a past and therefore a history
• Ideas of what constitutes mental illness and health have changed over time
• Ideas of what causes and the treatments for mental illness have changed over time due to these changing ideas, but also other cultural and societal changes.

It could be taught at the start of GCSE or as a KS3 study to encourage conceptual understanding of change over time (thematic).

The resources you need are here:

There are also a selection of slot-ins on the YorkClio slot-in page.

The starter images are here:

Narratives to build chronological understanding and fill in the gaps

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Natalie Kesterton, Head of History at Ryedale School and Chartered History Teacher, has developed several approaches to building chronological coherence in the KS3 curriculum by filling the gaps in the story – the bits we don’t have time to teach. She came to the University of York History PGCE mentors’ meeting and shared her ideas so far. This work is being written up for Teaching History and will be featuring in the SHP and HA conferences, so we were lucky to get a preview. Her work supports the development of students’ chronological understanding and helps them to join up the different depth studies by identifying the big themes.  Natalie has kindly shared her resources so far:

final 1660-1750 narrative DIFFERENTIATED X2 

final 1660-1750 narrative DIFFERENTIATED

final 1660-1750 narrative DRAFT THREE

Narrative 1216-1348 DRAFT THREE DIFF needs work

Narrative 1216-1348 DRAFT THREE

Which King 1087-1199 DRAFT THREE DIFFERENTIATED

Which King 1087-1199 DRAFT THREE DIFFERENTIATEDx2

Which King 1087-1199 DRAFT THREE

Bumping into sources!

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Here is a PPT and some thoughts about using sources as evidence at KS3 and KS4 to do well at GCSE and NOT use endless exam questions because: 1) there is more to education, 2) it’s not the way to build secure knowledge for strong results.

Bumping into sources

Accompanying notes

The story of the Pilgrimage of Grace   PoG notes sheet   PoG fact sheet

A taxonomy of substantive knowledge    Brixton burning the riots remembered

YHF Resources: Thomas Becket session

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

The teaching materials that were presented in November 2018 at Yorkshire History Forum are here for your use. York PGCE medieval religion lessons-FINAL

They are:

  1. An activity about religion in medieval life with plan, resources and subject knowledge for teachers.
  2. Two lessons about Becket, with resources and subject knowledge for teachers.
  3. A fully resourced lesson on the rivalry between York and Canterbury that was fueled by the Becket affair with an impact on the historic environment still evident today.
  4. A lesson on medieval pilgrimage with teacher plan, resources and subject knowledge update.

These materials were developed by the University of York PGCE historians 2017-18. To do this they worked with Jeremy Muldowney from York Minster and with Dr John Jenkins, University of York and other members of the Centre for Christianity and Culture. The materials were edited by Helen Snelson.

 

 

Resources for Schools from Oxford University

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

“How do we create a curriculum in schools and universities that best reflects the histories of our current students and future citizens? As Britain has become a more diverse society, and as a result become increasingly aware of its diverse past, the need to ensure that is reflected in what we teach and research is a question of growing importance, educationally and politically.”

That’s the start of the blogpost that explains the thinking behind the new resources for schools trial from Oxford University. You can read the blogpost HERE

The result of this thinking so far is the development of knowledge rich resources that are not focused on the British Isles, or even Europe. This site is worth exploring to expand your own subject knowledge, for resources you can use and adapt for use in class, for ideas about more diverse approaches to school history topics.

The resources team would welcome comments via the website.

Hidden in Plain Sight – resources for teaching the history of people with disability

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Following on from our HA conference session in Stratford, here are the copies of the resources. We have a duty to reflect the pasts of all people in society in our classrooms. Our session focused on subject knowledge about the history of disability and ideas for teaching. We worked with a mini-thematic activity exploring disability through time. You can find a Word file of these resources here: Timeline headings and text  Pics for timeline

We suggest that you can first match headings and pictures, then sort the material onto a timeline, then ask questions about continuity and change in attitudes. For example, how complex are attitudes across the medieval period? When was the worst time to be a person with disability in the past? What is the role of factors such as religion, the state, war etc in the story.

This sort of mini-thematic could be used at KS3 (to help students learng to think thematically) or at the start of teaching ‘Medicine Through Time’ (as it explores some very relevant themes to that topic).

The image featured on this blog is a Bruegel called ‘Carnival and Lent’. We ask students to imagine walking through the scene noticing the people. Disability is not hidden away.

We have also developed the idea of ‘slot-ins’. Recognising that the history curriculum is jam-packed, we want to encourage you to recognise the stories that are within the topics you already teach. Slot-ins (not bolt-ons) allow you to introduce richness and diversity to topics from the Tudor court, to slavery abolition, and to civil rights post 1945. You can find these materials here.

Thanks to the team who worked with us yesterday and please do share great ideas for bringing more of these important pasts into our history lessons.

Another useful timeline is here: Disability timeline

Why is Europe so many different countries?

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development
Reading Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography over the Easter holidays developed my thinking and questioning as to why certain countries perpetually seemed to be at war. I always knew that France and Germany had historic disagreements, but never stopped to consider how the physical geography of the countries, combined with individuals’ desire for power, could influence this.
With this in mind, I created this two-lesson sequence, aiming to draw together elements of historical and geographical teaching in a way to help develop students’ schema of the medieval period, as well as to understand why countries perpetually seem to be at war. It is designed for Year 7, which is why I have combined some regions (notably France) into more of a nation state than it was.
As a non-geography expert, I am sure that there are many elements of the discipline that I could have included but did not. If you happen to think of any ways to improve this resource, please let me know.
The resources are here:
Victoria Bettney
University of York/Pathfinder TSA trainee 2017-18 and York High from September 2018

Teaching bigger history – great free resources!

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Huge thanks to Dan Nuttall and Laura Goodyear for sharing their resources with everyone in the history teacher tribe. We are really pleased to publish the link here. People at the HA’s recent Yorkshire History Forum were able to hear them explain their work. If you missed it, do get in touch with Dan and he will happily explain the thinking behind these resources in more depth.

Frameworks and teaching bigger history
The link below will take you to five units that all deploy a frameworks approach as a method for teaching big/bigger history. The units cover:
– Big History (covering the development of humankind from hunter-gatherers to the present). Eight KS3 lessons with resources.
– C20 international relations. Seven KS3 lessons with resources.
– Power and the monarchy c.1000-present. Eight KS3 lessons with resources. Could be adapted for GCSE Power and the People.
– Big History of slavery (from Palaeolithic to the present). Seven KS3 lessons with resources (intended to be taught as well as, not instead of, transatlantic slavery).
– France 1776-1830. A framework with diagrams, not a complete unit, for A Level.
These are shared to encourage further experimentation and discussion into the ways in which students can be taught to comprehend larger scales of time, and thereby develop greater historical consciousness.  Please see the ‘Further reading’ bibliography.
Please feel free to share with colleagues and the wider history teaching community.*
Feedback and discussion more than welcome, to danielnuttall1981@gmail.com.
Thanks and happy experimentation!
Dan Nuttall
* – no commercial use please without permission.
– please credit the authors. ‘Power and Monarchy in Britain’ unit by Rick Rogers and Dan Nuttall. ‘France 1176-1830’ by Dan Nuttall, images by Laura Goodyear. ‘C20 International Relations’ by Dan Nuttall, images by Laura Goodyear. ‘Big Story of Us’ by Rick Rogers (framework/grid), Laura Goodyear and Dan Nuttall (lessons and resources). ‘Big History of Slavery’ by Denis Shemilt (framework), Laura Goodyear and Dan Nuttall (lessons and resources).
– I do not own copyright for any images that may be contained within the resources.

 

The Old Lady in the Post Office – how to teach writing a strong line of argument to any key stage

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Screenshot (253)

If you’re finding it difficult to teach students in any Key Stage what an argued piece of writing that offers a substantiated judgement looks like, you need to meet someone. She’s called the Old Lady in the Post Office and nothing I’ve tried has been more effective in helping students understand what a line of argument looks like when it runs throughout an essay. Here is the monologue as a PPT: The Old Lady in the Post Office . It has a screen and handout version.

Inspired by the work of Daisy Christodoulou, and her argument that we can teach and formatively assess specific elements within longer pieces of writing, the Old Lady is an attempt to characterise the line of argument, helping students self- and peer-assess this particular element of writing judgement essays in History.

The task is simple – the student with the best ‘Old Lady’ voice reads out the argument and the other students have to identify the core problem she has with the Post Office. They can then identify how she acknowledges subsidiary factors and how she brings them into her argument and builds her opinion from start to finish.

Once they have done this ten-minute task, they are able to identify the line of argument in their own and other essays by answering questions like ‘Can you ‘hear’ the Old Lady coming through?’ and ‘Has she got a clear answer to this question?’ Consequently students are far quicker at identifying their own and other lines of argument.

Bonus Tip 1: To exemplify a ‘real historian’ doing this, look no further than The Old Man in the Army Uniform. He can be found presenting an argued case about the causes of the American Civil War on YouTube for Prager University. (YouTube clip)

Bonus Tip 2: This characterisation of a line of argument as the ‘Old Lady in the Post Office’ is showing promising signs in the task of analysing written interpretations and looking for the overarching interpretation. It seems particularly useful for distinguishing between the interpretation and the evidence offered in support of it.

Hugh Richards

for YorkClio in Feb 2018