Home Page: I’ve chosen the content of the Home Page to reflect some of the ideals and themes of the site. New material will be flagged up at the bottom of the page.

What’s this website all about? Purpose and Ethos: Here I’ve set out the ideals and purposes of the site. One major purpose is to provide examples of effective teaching techniques which, in varying ways and extents, involve a degree of physical activity and movement in the classroom which gives learning a strong visual dimension and/or a requirement to ‘think from the inside’ of historical situations. In addition, the activities, and articles and discussions embody and exemplify approaches to teaching and planning which are built around curiosity about how students learn and creativity in planning and teaching to deepen that learning.

Teaching Techniques and Discussions: The Craft of History Teaching: There are extended articles on eight individual techniques – living graphs, structured role-plays, decision-making, scripted drama etc. plus over 20 articles about broad teaching approaches (such as the use of story) and about solutions for specific problems that students have. This section also has an introductory article called “How to … give yourself the best chance of using these activities effectively.”

Classroom Resources: The biggest section of the site, containing over 200 items including many sent in by other teachers. Ian Luff’s teaching activities are particularly well-represented – something I’m very proud of, given how highly I regard his work. You can search by historical period or by Key Stage. There’s also an introduction – kept brief as it overlaps with the Teaching Techniques introduction.

Curriculum Planning: Discussions and Articles: There’s nearly 30 articles here, grouped into sections – Aims, Essentials (Misconceptions and Takeaways), What is History?, Building Coherence across KS3, Fieldwork and Teaching Individual Topics.

Raising Attainment through Visible Learning: This section, written with Dale Banham, is central to the site’s emphasis on helping students learn how to learn and the importance of making the process of learning visible. Six units cover Starting points, Key Principles, Teaching Themes, Teaching Depth Studies, Feedback and Marking and Helping Students to Communicate Effectively – all copiously illustrated with classroom examples.

Enquiry and Independent Learning: This section is equally central to the website’s ethos and has strong links to the Visible Learning section. The core article discusses the role of enquiry in learning and teaching history and stressing the importance of enquiry for developing students’ ability to study independently. There’s also a separate article on enquiry at KS2 and another on developing independent learning, particularly at A level.

Chronological Knowledge and Understanding: A collection of articles and resources for KS2 and above. The core article, written in 2022, emphasises that developing chronological knowledge and understanding is complex and multi-layered, involving far, far more than simply teaching events in chronological order. Centrally important is building teaching around identifying and countering students’ misconceptions, what they think is involved in chronological knowledge and understanding and why it’s important.

‘CPD in a Textbook’ – Contexts, Aims and Creativity in Writing and Editing History Textbooks 1983-2016: This section contains three articles discussing the series of textbooks I worked on editor and writer between 1983 and 2016 – one article is on KS3 books, another on GCSE and the third on A level books. Each article explores the contexts which influenced the nature of the books, the CPD aims of each series and whether we succeeded in our delivering our aims and concludes by briefly discussing whether ‘old’ textbooks can still provide useful CPD for teachers.

Teaching Medieval History at KS3: This is a project which offers a very different approach to medieval history at KS3. It grew out of the HA publication Exploring and Teaching Medieval History and provides textbook-style chapters, articles on planning teaching of the Middle Ages (which discuss principles that can be applied to all periods) and links to resources for teachers.

The Wars of the Roses at A level: A particular focus of mine for many years, this material is divided into two sections – Classroom Resources and, secondly, Books, Videos, Talks, Blogs and Websites.

Looking back and Smiling … is a section with two sections! The first contains a set of essays looking back at some of my experiences and thoughts on the nature of history teaching since the 1970s – much of which really does make me smile when I look back. The second section celebrates friends who meant a great deal to me – none of these pieces were easy to write but it was important to me to do so.

The Redmayns – a family in the 15th century: My retirement project! Not highly academic but as well-researched as I can manage (and including some genuine discoveries), this is a detailed (book-length) exploration of the lives of the family who lived up the road from us at Harewood castle in the 1400s. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both the research and developing a style of writing – personal, investigative and, at times, experimental – that’s kept me eager to put fingers to keyboard. I hope it makes enjoyable reading too.

About Ian Dawson and ThinkingHistory: As historians we know about the paramount importance of provenance when evaluating utility and reliability, so this section tells visitors to the site about its provenance, who created it and the experiences and influences that led to the site.

And a final note – there are some deliberate repetitions on the site. Some articles appear more than once because they are relevant to more than one issue and because I think they’re particularly important and I don’t want you to miss them!

Ian Dawson 2024