First day for the new PGDE Secondary (25/26) cohort at @morayhouse.bsky.social! Welcome Week is always a brilliant time on-campus ☺️ Kicking the pedagogical pondering off this morning with an ‘Introduction to Scottish Education’ lecture. Here’s to another fantastic year ahead! 😎

A brilliant first day of filming for an exciting new project at the Scottish National War Memorial, in partnership with @morayhouse.bsky.social. Time spent in the memorial and the archive. A huge thank you to everyone involved (inc. Lochgelly High School) for their support.

Please, if you can, donate at the link below and help support the Glasgow Children’s Hospital: www.justgiving.com/page/dads-an...

Middle-aged man doing middle-aged man things.

PTSD Law Grads. If you know, you know!

Days like today.

An MEd study on ‘factors impacting the formation of identity for secondary school probationer teachers in Scotland’. Please, if applicable to you, complete the survey at the link below and share in your networks. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Started work with colleagues on a project looking at 'protest' through an interdisciplinary lens. Art, History, Literature, and Music. Feels timely!

Has Senior Phase History in Scotland lost its spark? A few rambling thoughts of mine. Available to read on SubStack at the link below. open.substack.com/pub/phamil/p...

End of term (24/25) - the last supper!

Something in the pipeline, working in collaboration with the Scottish National War Memorial. Watch this space!

The view while riding the closed-road Glasgow city centre route after the Tour of Britain. A real treat to have the streets to yourself! #ToBW

Tremendous day at Tour of Britain (stage four) ladies race yesterday. A great atmosphere at Glasgow Green and opening the course up to the public afterwards was a marvellous thing to do👌🏻 #ToBW

PGDE Ceilidh for the @morayhouse.bsky.social Class of 25. The future of the past!

Attended a Social Studies collaboration event this week (as part of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle). Sometimes, my default mode is to approach review and reform with trepidation and cynicism - but this was a genuinely good day with inspired thinking from passionate teachers.

Great being back at Uddingston Grammar School this week. A brilliant social subjects faculty who have welcomed two @morayhouse.bsky.social PGDE Historians this year 📚

Visit to Dalry Cemetery recently. Nature doing its thing but headstones in good order - I quite like it!

I had a great visit to Castle Douglas High School this morning. Observed an excellent lesson on the Declaration of Arbroath taught by a @morayhouse.bsky.social PGDE Historian 📚 A huge thank you to Ms Connelly and the team for the warm welcome and the fantastic mentoring!

Kicked-off placement three visits today at Tynecastle High School. Always a pleasure to visit the Social Subjects faculty - a huge thank you to Ms Buchan and the team for their excellent mentoring of a @morayhouse.bsky.social PGDE Historian.

A familiar theme with a new perspective. Looking forward to speaking later this week at Manchester Metropolitan’s War and Pilgrimage network on Battlefield Tours as Modern Pilgrimage.

Delighted to have written a blog for the Imperial War Museum sharing some reflections - my own and those of young people - on visiting former First World War battlefields. Drawing on pieces of my work at @morayhouse.bsky.social, available to read at the link below… www.iwm.org.uk/blog/partner...

The Great War: I Was There (Part 21).

Available to read now, on SubStack, at the link below - a few thoughts after attending the recent @cwgc.bsky.social event hosted by @rusi.bsky.social on the subject of commemoration and diplomacy. phamil.substack.com/p/who-owns-r...

Watching the Wyndford flats come down did hit hard. As someone who grew up in a multi-storey in Glasgow, it’s more than bricks and concrete - it’s memories, community, and identity. A piece of the city gone.

End of an era for Maryhill!

A pleasure to be at the home of RUSI at Whitehall this morning to represent @morayhouse.bsky.social at a joint event with the CWGC to discuss “the role of commemoration in diplomacy”.

Great to be at the Scottish Parliament today with the @morayhouse.bsky.social #EdPGDE Historians. A huge thank you to the parliament education team for the tour and workshop session.

Rounded off placement two visits with two fantastic observed lessons today. One at Cliftonhall School and another at St. Kentigern’s Academy. 540 miles covered. Incredibly grateful to all the fantastic mentors at schools right across Scotland! The future of the past!

An absolute pleasure to visit Moffat Academy to observe a @morayhouse.bsky.social #EdPGDE history lesson. P.S: Look at all the pupils using their bikes to get to school, plus Barney in the library!

A story in two pictures!

Glasgow Central.

Fair to say I’m delighted with this.

This week in 1991: Anti-Gulf War protest in Glasgow. Maryhill MP Maria Fyfe speaks, joined by Campbell Christie of the STUC, Mohammed Sarwar, who would later become an MP, and John Bell a church minister.

PGDE Secondary interview day at @morayhouse.bsky.social for the Class of 25/26. We are really looking forward to meeting the candidates today, and if you’re one of them, deep breaths, big smile, you’ve got this!

Cumbrae.

Dumbarton.

Cumbrae Parish Church.

Not too shabby as far as memorials are concerned.

Kicked-off placement two visits at OLSP yesterday. I spent twelve years teaching in WDC, so it was great to be back on familiar soil. And, of course, a fantastic lesson from one of the @morayhouse.bsky.social #EdPGDE Historians, supported by the amazing OLSP Social Subjects faculty.

Glasgow Central.

First jaunt on the MTB for 2025…

A pleasure to be at @rcsofficial.bsky.social earlier today to lead a session with the BEd2 cohort. A fantastic group of students - it was great fun to talk all things ‘history’ and ‘curriculum’.

Hid myself away in a corner of @morayhouse.bsky.social yesterday to get some marking done. The view wasn’t too bad!

A fun fact [for me] is that the final section of my EdD thesis was a nod to the Manic Street Preachers and a lyric from ‘Everything Must Go’. #NothingButMemory

30 years ago today, Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers disappeared, leaving behind a legacy of raw, uncompromising artistry. His words still resonate!

The past, present, and future of history teaching! A huge thank you to the ‘Class of 24’ for visiting @morayhouse.bsky.social to meet the ‘Class of 25’ ahead of their second placement.

On this day, 29 January 1917, the submarine K13 sank in the Gareloch during sea trials after developing a leak, resulting in the loss of 32 lives. Among those who perished were workers from the Fairfield Shipyard.

A huge thank you to Mr Clarke from Erskine Melville Schools for leading a fantastic session on object-handling and the First World War with the @morayhouse.bsky.social #EdPGDE Historians.

A pleasure to be at the Scottish Parliament yesterday representing @morayhouse.bsky.social to discuss the work of the @cwgc.bsky.social in Scotland.

As expected, wonderful television! Cant recommend enough for fans of the mundane and slightly boring [but in a comforting way].