Thank you to everyone who came to our second Ark Soane History conference yesterday. It was such a joy to see so many history teacher colleagues together. As always, I’m proudest of our pupils who were so keen to help and talk about history. What a lovely day. #Soane25

Superb session from Jimmy Colenutt on ‘Building Becket’s world’. A brilliant presentation with boundless enthusiasm and energy from Jimmy. Loved it #Soane25

Hearing Professor Eamon Duffy talking about his book on Morebath is Early Modernist heaven. #Soane25

It’s always such a pleasure to be in London for the Ark Soane History conference. To my mind, it’s one of the best subject conferences out there. #Soane25

Getting a brief History lesson on D-Day from @mrmountstevens.bsky.social and am suddenly quite envious of his students. #Soane25

@michaeldoron.bsky.social doing @michaeldoron.bsky.social things #soane25

Really interesting session from @jacobolivey.bsky.social on Stalin and the Soviet Union. Love the use of powerful images and posters within the enquiry! #Soane25

Love the thinking that @jacobolivey.bsky.social has put into the enquiry in terms of the meaning of the word ‘transform’. Great analogy about a blue chair to explain this. Great stuff #Soane25

Excellent start to #Soane25 with @sam-jones.bsky.social talking about the power of building pupil comprehension through worlds. As a Viking geek, I loved it. From an ITT and CPD perspective, lots of nuggets to take away and share across our @teachfirst.bsky.social training.

We go again! #Soane25

HISTORY TEACHER ROLE! Our pupils love History at Ark Soane – from Year 7 all the way up to our first Year 10 cohort, 80% of whom do History GCSE. We’re expanding and looking for another History teacher to join us next September. Could this be you? Details below! 🙂

#Soane25 is going to be another conference like last year when you need Hermione's time-turner so you can get to all the sessions you want to attend. Really looking forward to it!

There aren’t many tickets left for our History conference this year - and they’re selling fast! Get them now - we’ll see you there! www.eventbrite.com/e/ark-soane-...

#Soane25 will be a cracker. Just look at the keynotes. @richkhistory.bsky.social is inspirational in his ambition & scholarship – a must listen. Then Eamon Duffy talking with Steve Mastin who famously used Duffy's research to recreate Morebath in his classroom! #Historyteachers do not miss this.

So honoured and excited to be invited to Ark Soane in February. Better get planning.

🚨 SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 I'm very excited to announce the keynote speakers for our #Soane25 history teacher conference on Saturday, 8 February 2025. 👇 Read more below 👇 🎟️ Get tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/ark-soane-... (1/3)

REMINDER: Tickets for the Ark Soane History Conference are LIVE. It’s only £25. Yes - you read that right. There’s even lunch. #Soane25

REMINDER: Tickets for the Ark Soane History Conference are LIVE. It’s only £25. Yes - you read that right. There’s even lunch. #Soane25

This is going to be so exciting. If you like the idea that the pastis an imagined world to your students, come and think/discuss to how other people do it! Last year was bloody brilliant, absolute source of joy.

Hoorah! Can't wait for #Soane25! 'Building worlds' is a terrific theme for the second year of this beautiful conference and the history geeks of Ark Soane are perfect hosts. History teachers everywhere, come for a day of total sanity and joy. Not one spot of dodgy 'sourcework' in sight.

Tickets booked! Absolutely cannot wait for this, what a line up. #Soane25 > Glasto

I didn’t get Oasis tickets for 2025 but securing a ticket for this has more than made up for it! Really looking forward to #Soane25 - this feels like the Glastonbury of history teaching!

This was absolutely great last year, and the line-up for 2025 looks amazing!

Wowsers! What a line up!! This is going to be epic. See you at #Soane25

This is going to be amazing. I'm in such a dilemma as it clashes with my little one's 6th birthday! Don't miss it for anything less! #historyteacher #soane25

Cannot wait for #Soane25 Saturday 8th February!

Ticket booked! This was my favourite conference of last year and I am really excited to be going again.

#Soane25 is live! Come and join us on Saturday 8th February for a day with a *phenomenal* line up of speakers. Tickets are ONLY £25 (including lunch!) Don’t miss it! www.eventbrite.com/e/ark-soane-...

Such a thought-provoking blog. Highly recommend a read (and re-read). ‘Teachers are not simply ‘deliverers’ of a curriculum; they are themselves curricular thinkers. In their planning before a lesson, but also during a lesson, good teachers make hundreds of micro-curricular decisions ...’

This was really good. I think it’s just superficially easier to parse people’s pedagogy than the curriculum esp for non-specialist senior leaders and that’s why you get the phenomena described here.

One thing the 2019 Ofsted framework got right was to argue that purpose, process and product need to be considered together in education - you can’t separate why, what and how. They used the terms “intent”, “implementation” and “impact” but it amounts to same thing. Of course schools started doing…

This blog is excellent. A genuinely thought provoking read.

Having given up on Twitter a few months ago, it’s been a while since I’ve read a blog as good as this.

This is such a thought provoking article. Especially in improving schools, the focus often is on the T&L and the curriculum is often overlooked. I've got some thinking to do about my own department...

You know those people who argue about teaching? Ignore them and read this. You don't have to agree or disagree. It's just intelligent, important stuff you have to think about.

This blog beautifully explains why generic t&l is v limited (beyond strong routines, behaviour management etc, but they're not teaching). We can't meaningfully judge, analyse improve, train or support teaching without being steeped in subject-specific, curricular shaping of the thing being taught.

This is a really well thought through and explained article. Especially appreciated the guidance on the place of pedagogy within a curricular focused solution.

This is a really helpful explanation of why teaching in the classroom, not just planning, is a curriculum matter as much as a pedagogical matter. It's why subject-specificity and curriculum knowledge when supporting colleagues to improve is so essential.

This is very good indeed.

📌Fantastic piece! One key takeaway for me is that key decisions affecting what happens in a lesson (observation) are often made outside the classroom and not by the teacher so feedback should reflect that.

This is excellent and precisely why I’m worried about Ofsted’s use of teaching and learning’. Most issues in lessons are curriculum issues.

This is really very good.

Oh this is very good

I wrote this some months ago and have avoided posting it for some time. Here's why I think we spend too much time worrying about pedagogy: inthenameofrigour.wordpress.com/2024/11/24/c...

New blog post Why Ofsted should not separate teaching from curriculum occamshairdryer.wordpress.com/2024/11/16/a...

We’ve a tendency to think that the most significant improvements in a school come from whole-school strategies, but (apart from behaviour) I think most improvement is led at the subject level. This is why. clioetcetera.com/2020/03/09/h...

I would agree with @stulock.bsky.social’s recent point that unless your behaviour is exceptional, your best whole-school strategy is to focus on behaviour. If SLT drive this, then that frees up your department heads and teachers to focus on improving curriculum, teaching and assessment.