Because of [waves hands at the state of the world] there's been a bit of discussion about how difficult it is to sink oil tankers. As this account firmly approves of the empirical method, ie the boffin lingo for fucking around and finding out, let's look at an example. Meet Torrey Canyon.

If you’d like to get a glimpse of life at Five Islands, check out Channel 5’s Summer in the Scilly Isles episode from last night: www.channel5.com/show/summer-...

This look brilliant! Too far for me from Scilly, but I hope other members of the HA Southwest Network will make it. @andrewshtbc.bsky.social

1. I am absolutely thrilled to be able to announce the launch of the @1972shp.bsky.social South-West History Forum! The inaugural event will be taking place on June 18 in Bristol, with a stellar lineup: Michael Riley, @paulalobo.bsky.social and @tomallenhistory.bsky.social

This September, you could be embarking on an island adventure as MFL/French teacher here in the Isles of Scilly! Click below to complete an application form: 3 days left to apply. We would love to hear from you. fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/teacher-of-m... Friends and connections: please share…

*Modern Foreign Languages Teacher* in the Isles of Scilly. Join us this September at Five Islands Academy: fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/join-us/job-.... We offer a truly beautiful school, community and environment to teach in. We’d love to hear from you.

*Teacher of Music* in the Isles of Scilly! Are you dreaming of a life, creativity and career adventure? Join us at Five Islands Academy as Music Teacher: fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/join-us/job-... Please get in touch to find out more.

*Modern Foreign Languages Teacher* in the Isles of Scilly. Join us this September at Five Islands Academy: fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/join-us/job-.... We offer a truly beautiful school, community and environment to teach in. We’d love to hear from you.

*Teacher of Music* in the Isles of Scilly! Are you dreaming of a life, creativity and career adventure? Join us at Five Islands Academy as Music Teacher: fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/join-us/job-... Please get in touch to find out more.

Our little spooky eyes St Agnes horror film - ‘Look, Stranger’ - has been showing in Bristol and Paris this month! Filmed a couple of years ago with lots of giggles and perplexed holidaymakers passing by. Enjoy if you have an idle 4 minutes. youtu.be/ByQMNf6dQsY

#OtD 26 Apr 1682 revolutionary Quaker abolitionist and little person, Benjamin Lay, was born in England. In 1718, he moved to Barbados as a merchant, but witnessing the horrific treatment of enslaved Africans he became a lifelong anti-slavery campaigner

We are recruiting for a short-term French teacher in the Isles of Scilly this June/July! What an adventure. Please get in touch. fiveislands.scilly.sch.uk/french-teach... We can offer a flat 2 mins from the sea, and a lovely, friendly school community to join for the half term.

Gorgeous text, gorgeous pages. We're on the home stretch with the #ChangingHistoriesKS3 Expanding Worlds c.1600-c1870 proofs, so here's an Easter treat of a few pages. Every spread in this book is a thing of beauty. I can't wait for you all to see it.

🚨 Outrage as 20 police officers break into Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrest six. 🚨 This shocking violation of a place of worship is a direct result of crackdowns on protest and dissent - freedom of speech, assembly and democracy are at risk.🕊️ 👉 www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Great to see FIA alumnus Jacob featuring in today’s Observer photography article on small boat fishing in Scilly and Cornwall - and to read the author’s positive reflections on the efforts local fishermen put into sustainability. #FIAalumni #news www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Moonlight on St Agnes

What a beautiful image. And such powerful word choice: ‘the sheer diversity of young lives we serve’ - recognising the individuality of our children and our moral duty to each one of them.

“And yet, the demand to empathise with the boys and men propagating this hatred must surely be exceeded by a justified anger on behalf of the girls and women who are the actual subjects of said hatred. If anything, it is obscene that we women are not more furious and more frightened.”

Congratulations to all at Penrice! This is a huge achievement in our Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly setting - and the pride with which your students present the report is inspiring.

I cling onto the fact that though none of us can save everything, we can all save something, some tiny little speck of something good, and these, collectively, perhaps will make waves in ways we can’t begin to fathom xx

If you are feeling, ‘What on earth can I do?’, here is one small thing which won’t feel small to a family supported by Hospice Ukraine.

It was great to welcome our first full cohort to Session 1 of the (now over-subscribed) @histassoc.bsky.social Experienced Teacher Programme tonight. Educators from a wide range of contexts, with 348 years worth of teaching expertise to share over the next five sessions.

On the anniversary of the Russian attack on Ukraine we have made out Historian 'Ukraine edition' open access - learn about culture and history as well as politics of conflict. www.history.org.uk/publications...

Such a useful discussion in the thread and comments (the MFL input particularly) about students following the text during teacher read-alouds.

If you can possibly get a ticket to Kenrex at the Southwark Playhouse, it’s incredible! A blast of a one-man show bringing to life the true crime story of a Midwest town complete with a dozen compelling characters - and brilliant music by John Elliot. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Just four places left on the 2025 Experienced Teacher Programme starting this Wednesday, 26th February: CPD pitched at the level of expertise, designed to refresh and reenergise great history teaching. Bag your spot here: www.history.org.uk/secondary/ca...

Just four places left on the 2025 Experienced Teacher Programme starting this Wednesday, 26th February: CPD pitched at the level of expertise, designed to refresh and reenergise great history teaching. Bag your spot here: www.history.org.uk/secondary/ca...

💬 "Degree apprenticeships are not being used as a tool for social mobility in the way they really could be." Degree apprenticeships could be great for social mobility, if we boosted access to them. More needs to be done to make them accessible to people from all backgrounds ⤵️

Whale 🐳 time of year again in sparkly February Scilly 😊

Bonkers but brilliant Project Week planning at school this week preparing for our student-led day of community workshops to raise money for Scilly Welcomes - supporting our Syrian friends who have resettled in Cornwall to visit us on the islands. www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...

Watching this: we’ve never tried providing interview questions in advance, but I like the idea of taking away the element of testing candidates’ speed of processing and instead giving them a chance to explore their thinking in depth.

Oooh this looks good! #EduSky

In this blog, @andrewshtbc.bsky.social and I have shared our thinking about why there is a need for high quality CPD specifically designed for expert teachers. We’ve designed an HA Experienced Teacher Programme in response to this perceived need, and would love to hear your reflections.

Are you as self-critical as I am about the marginalisation of Irish history in your curriculum? Emmy’s session sounds like a great place to start changing that.

Great discussion of a painting from Glasgow showing the links to the transatlantic slave system. Slavery’s legacies are everywhere! 🗺️🗃️ glasgowmuseumsslavery.co.uk/2020/07/29/s...

‘I was terrified about parental backlash’: taking contested history into schools Interesting. Something that Schools History Project does (or did). I used to teach the NI conflict in the 1990s www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

History community: please share as I’m not using X any more! Inspiring CPD tailored to experienced teachers who want to grapple with ‘new’ ideas (or challenge how new they really are), refresh pedagogy and expand networks. Brought to you by @histassoc.bsky.social, @andrewshtbc.bsky.social and me.

Exciting new resource from @ageofrev.bsky.social: graphic novel with sound by the amazing Angeline Morrison, telling the story of sailor Billy Waters - ageofrevolution.org/home/billy-w... - including free class set of the text to support teaching of migration/Black British histories. ❤️

New story - Henry Metelmann. I concluded for this one he ought to tell the story himself so combined extracts from his book with the 1997 BBC History file video with structured qus. This story does so much not just on youth but also terror, control & disciplinary thinking. #historyteacher #OCRB

'Half a million pupils studied history at GCSE or A-level last year, but just 2,000 tackled the origins of the Middle East’s most contentious war: why Israel was born, what that meant for the Palestinians, and the decades of occupation and violence that followed.' Parallel Histories addresses that.

Do you teach OCR African Kingdoms Alevel or African Kingdoms at KS3? Would you like to start? On Friday 25 April 2025, the Bristol Historical Association are hosting an afternoon of lectures on Early Modern African Kingdoms from an amazing group of academics. Free for Sixth Formers and Teachers!

It's interesting to see the wave of new Bluesky individual accounts including journalists, following the Trump/Musk electoral victory. The question of the day is, will institutions and organisations (including charities, research bodies and universities) now follow suit?

Pondering the order school leaders need to sort stuff. Ok so they’re complex and overlapping but when you boil it down is it as simple as…? 1. Safeguarding 2. Attendance 3. Behaviour 4. Quality of teaching 5. Quality of academic interventions 6. Personal development #Edusky

Look! There’s a play on in London about our plane hijack. Should I go and see it? Would it be fascinatingly therapeutic or just twitching at the tail of trauma? www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/s...

I had an experience at work recently that left me very shaken, and was advised to phone Education Support. Such an amazing resource: an immediate hour of counselling and kindness which really helped. Thank you, @edsupportuk.bsky.social. And #edusky friends - if you need help, phone 08000 562561.

It’s so exciting to be speaking on a panel at #VIS2024 with a global audience, and learning about how island educators across the world (Bermuda, Antigua, Scotland…) meet the challenges of climate change, fluctuating populations, mental health and aspiration through innovation and creativity.

Spending this evening reading tributes to Helen’s kind, gentle, but also incisive and determined wisdom, with tears for the loss that history educator friends are feeling. What a lot of love she inspires from those who were very close to her and those of us just touched by her generous friendship.