Nearly all teachers enjoy teaching history and will want to improve the quality of their own teaching so that children can make better progress. However, the demanding task of improving colleagues’ practice can be daunting, especially when you first start leading the subject. The philosophy that this site holds regarding teachers’ continuing professional development is summed up very neatly by the Assessment for Learning group, led by professors Black and Wiliam:
“Teachers will not take up attractive sounding ideas, albeit based on extensive research, if these are presented as general principles which leave entirely to them the task of translating them into everyday practice – their classroom lives are too busy and too fragile for this to be possible for all but an outstanding few. What they need is a variety of living examples of implementation, by teachers with whom they can identify and from whom they can both derive conviction and confidence that they can do better, and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice.” (Black and Wiliam, 1998)
With this in mind, you will see that my view is that wherever possible you should try to engage your colleagues in discussion of what constitutes
