I’m the Oxbridge guy at my school. This time of year I’m encouraging a new set of 6th form to consider applying & joining the enrichment programme I run. My biggest challenge is breaking down misconceptions that it’s only for the posh. This sets me back years. 🤦🏻 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Under the Trump administration, Howard Zinn’s work has been banished from US classrooms. Now more than ever Americans really should be studying this classic.

The BBC mini series on the Titanic is relatable public history at its best. Using primary sources as its basis - a teacher could create a whole number of enquiry lessons around it. The most powerful for me is what it tells us about class in Edwardian society. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

David Olusoga becoming the most important public historian of a generation. Watching his latest Empire series makes me proud we were early adopters of the Migration, Empires & People option for GCSE. If nothing else it pisses off all the right people in the culture wars. youtu.be/dQeXmTSJHHs?...

Intuitively I am very nervous about the current suggestions to get rid of trial by jury. There are many good reasons to feel that way. But I do suspect that many of the people who are citing Magna Carta as the guardian of our civil liberties can’t have actually read the 1215 document.

As teachers we sometimes forget how we can be inspired by students: I met up with an ex- student. They’ve followed a roundabout path in education & have now just started a degree several years after leaving school. They’ve never been happier. A role model that education isn’t a conveyor belt.

Whatever we might think about the curriculum I am sick of the dumbing down narrative. I’m old enough to have done O levels. My school had only recently become a comprehensive and retained a grammar school ethos. My students today work far harder than I did. And their mental wellbeing is much worse.

At the end of an inset day in school the History dept went to the Barbican for Olusoga’s ‘Gun through a time’. Genuine CPD - his argument that three technologies built Britain’s empire in Africa: Quinine / Gunboats / Maxim Guns. I might just steal that.

History teachers use ads as primary sources in lessons. Often disturbing; for better or worse, they provide insight into the prevailing values of a period. So when a modern politician complains that ads today are now actually too multicultural, it's pretty safe to infer where they are coming from...

Anniversary today of Edgehill in 1642 - first major battle of the British civil wars. Interesting to think that those there can have had absolutely no conception of what they were about to be a part of: Three civil wars, regicide and the birth of several new ideologies.

Back from visiting Auschwitz/ Birkenau. Exhausting physically, mentally and emotionally. A privilege to share this experience with our students.

Y13 Auschwitz trip: At the Waval castle overlooking the old city. An explanation of why the area was ironically a safe haven for Eastern European Jews for centuries.

Time of year of anniversary of me being made redundant from my previous career. Also time for advising students about university choices and seeing ex-students who’ve graduated & now stressing over careers. My example; it’s ok not to know at 18 or 21. You’ll find your path if you stay open minded.

Sadly I couldn’t join them, today but I’m so happy that I work in a department where my colleagues choose to spend their weekends enjoying History. A trip to the battlefield for a reenactment to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings

Excited to be taking a new bunch of Year13s to Auschwitz next week. Did the usual parents briefing I’ve delivered many times before - depressing to think that given the current state of the world, the trip is more relevant now than when I first did it 12 years ago.

The trouble with being a History teacher is that watching the news triggers historical parallels: Now I’m haunted by the fact that in 1934 most Germans who voted Nazi weren’t necessarily antisemitic - they were just prepared to overlook Nazi racism because they wanted to ‘reclaim their country’.

A week to contemplate the revolving door of teaching. New classes. A dinner for History A Level leavers off to university (one of my favourite events of the year). And meeting up with former students now returned home after graduating uni. A continuous community stretching across the years.

Much as I enjoy the holidays, I’m ready for a new school year. But I dread starting it with interminable exams analysis & unveiling of new policies & mission statements. Imagine a world where teachers were shown this from Akala at INSET to inspire them for the task ahead. youtu.be/YsK3Q-QNcpQ?...

A joyous GCSE results day yesterday. But why all the fuss at age 16 when education & training now extends until 18? When I was at school most students left at 16 to start work/join the dole queue. We’re due an overhaul of education & assessment system - that needs some brave & visionary leadership.

Like many teachers I use this London Transport recruitment poster in my migration lessons. To my shame I’ve not thought about the actual woman in the picture.Thanks to Michael Rosen I now know this is Claudette Hart. a salutary reminder to respect that History is the experience of ordinary people.

So the Daily Mail a paper who is sceptical about the value of universities (and indeed education in general) has again come up with a set of rankings. Having dealt with students in Clearing yesterday this thinking is so damaging & ill-informed. www.timeout.com/uk/news/the-...

Every year there’s a story to discredit our broken UCAS system. I’m pleased more students might get their first choice. But others won’t have applied in the first place because they were put off by published offers. And it’s just more unnecessary anxiety at a stressful time. bbc.com/news/article...

Visited a large museum of the Resistance & Liberation in a small town in an out of the way part of France. Insightful & sensitive handling not just of the heroic aspects but also the issues of Petainist collaboration & Vichy’s role in the Holocaust. Such nuance & honesty too rare in public History.

We saw racist historian David Starkey reveal his true colours and commit career suicide at the time of BLM. Let’s hope apologist of imperialism and darling of the Right Niall Fergusson does the same. kmflett.wordpress.com/2025/08/02/g...

Another History teacher on holiday pleasure is catching up on historical dramas on my tablet. Easy to mock, but actually they have a place in the classroom to instil a sense of period & historical empathy. Except of course when they’re just anachronistic crap. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

One of the joys of being a History teacher on holiday is getting to read some History. One of the disadvantages is when something like this genuinely challenges your thinking about a topic you have taught for a while. And then you realise you’re going to have to re-plan a whole series lessons 🤦🏻😂

Finding names for new parties on the Left can quickly dissolve into a Monty Python sketch. And at the turn of the 19th century nay-sayers in the trade union move we’re worried that an emerging Labour Party would split the Liberal vote. Plus ca change..,

The last week of term. I'm having a lot of conversations about careers with leavers ( Y11 & Y13) and former students now graduating. I'm tempted to recommend David Gerber's book. To encourage them to do work with meaning both for them & society. So proud my own daughters work in the public sector

As a teacher this is such a discombobulating time of year. Shattered after the stresses of exam prep. ‘Gain time’ for curriculum development once exam classes gone. And the bitter-sweet revolving door of saying goodbyes to students we’ve built relationships with - sometimes for 7 years.

Serves me right: After bemoaning absence of women from the A Level English Revolution spec - the exam yesterday had a Leveller women source. Don’t know whether to be happy or annoyed at the exam board for featuring topics not in the spec or their approved textbook. Good job I teach beyond the spec.

Always had a fascination for pirates: First read about them in Christopher Hill’s work, & later Marcus Rediker. Their inclusive, communal & libertarian counter culture a great way in to teaching the attitudes of the era; a mirror image to the great chain of being. open.spotify.com/episode/5jap...

When Y13 have their English Revolution exam in a couple of weeks let’s hope they have better understanding of the legal concept of habeas corpus than the US Secretary for Homeland Security🤦 She needs to study the 5 Knights Case of 1627 or the John Hampden case of 1637. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Feeling privileged to have Leila Hassan-Howe speak to my Year 9s about Black British Civil Rights campaigns in the 70s with her late partner Darcus Howe. Also feeling proud to be part of a school where we can build this into our History curriculum. @hdesilva.bsky.social @calmleadership.bsky.social

Just booked this: I love working with colleagues who regard this as a good night out for the History department. www.fane.co.uk/david-olusog...

I love teaching the migration unit for GCSE. I particularly enjoy the story of the Huguenots - the first refugee community to settle in the East End. And it was especially good to explain to Year 10 that one in six of us in London have Huguenot ancestry - including Nigel Farag

Results days are looming with all the angst that brings for students & staff. I'm not happy with the plan to roll out delivery of results by an app. Important that teachers are there to celebrate and support as needed, especially progression to uni. Provides a bit of humanity in an inhumane system.

It's the time of year when teachers get leaving gifts from students. Always very appreciated, but this year was the best ever: Two former students both mentioned me in the acknowledgements in their final undergraduate dissertations. For once I'm genuinely humbled and actually stuck for words...

Flag-waiving & parades eclipses the history of VE Day. My parents were teenagers in the blitz & WW2 was hugely formative. But their experience was of community & collectivism not patriotism. Excellent article: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I came to teaching late in life - but still have a sense that over the years I must have matured in my practice: When I started students called me Jack Sparrow. Now they call me Gandalf. 🤣

Easter holiday reading. Some 18th Century history. Shipwreck & mutiny in the Wager. Frances Barber born into slavery, Samuel Johnson’s friend & heir. A surprising link; the relatively meritocratic & racially diverse nature of the Royal Navy at that time.

There are few lessons where I find that I teach with unashamed emotion, but this is one of them; Today it’s the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. If you don’t include it in your curriculum I’d have to say you’re not doing justice teaching the Holocaust.

Two of my historical hobby-horses: The English Revolution and de-colonizing the curriculum. This podcast on Parliament and the Slave Trade in the 17th Century sits in the middle of that Venn diagram. However, scandalously it isn't part of the A Level curriculum. open.spotify.com/episode/6fXn...

Proud to say William Cuffay features in our Y8 curriculum.

In 1649, following the trail & execution of the king, parliament abolished the House of Lords declaring it to be "useless and dangerous to the people of England", Today in 2025, Michael Gove was given a peerage. Just saying ...

80th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen. Very powerful documentary by Sam Mendes - just too powerful not to share but with a caution that it's extremely disturbing. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

It's not a period that I've studied (inadequately) since O Level. But I've just watched Farage calling for nationalisation of the steel industry and I think it's time to have a look at Chamberlain's Tariff Reform League of the early 1900s and the strange phenomenon of working class conservativism.

I bumped into two former students last week who are going to start teaching training in September. But I’m yet to have one become a History teacher. Nothing would make me prouder.

We finished the last stage of collaboration with the Teaching Empire project. Following a series of student focus groups to discuss their experiences, we did one for the History teachers. Most up-lifting CPD we've done for ages, reminding each other why we do this job. www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/202...

Ironic: This weekend I'm marking essays on the arrest, torture and imprisonment of the Quaker James Nayler in 1656 under the Protectorate Parliament's Blasphemy Act. The same weekend I'm reading about the police raid last week on the Quaker meeting house in Euston Road. Plus ca change and all that.

It's scary when the Far Right starts attacking educators - but it does reassure you that you're probably doing the right thing. Both Trump and his UK equivalent seem intent on the same course. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...