In the Classroom

The month of June is an odd one in the academic year; a sort of strange twilight period. All of the exams for History and Politics students – both full A-level and AS-level – are over, and I’ve said my farewells to the students I’ve taught over the past couple of years. But for the […]

In A-level History earlier today, we were covering the Catholic threat to Queen Elizabeth I (as part of the module 1C. The Tudors), and having outlined the Pope’s excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570, we somehow got onto the question of who was the actual head of the Catholic Church at that time. Well, my standard […]

I’ve recently marked a batch of mock exams for my A-level History group on the Tudors module that we cover. On the whole, I’m happy with their progress, and am optimistic about their chances in the final exams in May and June later this year. One of the questions focused on the problems of succession […]

Well, it is over – another year of A-level exams is now completed. I’ve been involved in this process as a teacher for over a decade, and it remains as nervous, frustrating, and exhausting in 2023 as it felt in 2013. So, how about a post providing a snapshot of my main reflections on what […]

Over the past few months I’ve become a regular listener to the podcast The Rest is Politics. I’m always interested to hear what former New Labour master of communications Alastair Campbell and former Conservative MP Rory Stewart have to say on current events; despite my best efforts to persuade my Politics students to listen, I […]

I haven’t posted in a month which is, by far, the longest gap between posts on this blog since its birth in 2018. A big reason for this is the exam season of 2022; for the first time since 2019, A-level students faced rigid external examinations. And so, why not a short post outlining some […]

The following is an article that I wrote for an online educational site. It is based on research I undertook during my teacher training course, and during this academic year I have started to reflect more heavily on that course (perhaps due to the impact of Covid on teaching and learning). This website – Dave […]

Earlier this week in an A-level History revision session, I covered the breakdown of society during the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509). This involves an overview of the feudalist structure, with further focus on the hierarchy and influence of the Catholic Church. I haven’t seen any questions relating to this on previous exam papers (the […]

The last post outlined the various myths and legends of the medieval period of the phantom islands in the Atlantic ocean. This stemmed from the research that I am currently undertaking in preparation for my book about the empire-building of the Tudor state: The Tudor Empire. This research has enabled to delve further into the […]

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, a time to ‘remember those who were murdered for who they were’. The theme for 2022 is ‘One Day’, which provides an open interpretation: one day from history, one day in which life changed, or one day in the future when persecution is overcome. A couple of […]

About a week before the start of teaching of the 2021/22 academic year I made a snap decision: I would change a module that was covered in A-level History at my college. For the majority of the past decade the teaching team have maintained a gold standard when selecting modules: the Tudors and Nazi Germany […]

Earlier this year I completed an online course which served as an introduction to the principles of forest school. Forest school is defined by the Forest School Association as: Forest School is a child-centred inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration […]

Having previously covered some aspects of the foreign policy of Henry VII, I considered how successful he was during his twenty-four year reign from 1485 to 1509. In 1507, toward the end of his reign – and in relative security from earlier crises – Henry spoke to the City of London: ‘This our realm is […]