Happily (!) marking Y9 source assessments in local café while Joe is at holiday club. They've done a great job on the whole, but if I had a £ for every misplaced apostrophe in "Nazis" I could've bought the whole café a bacon roll each

Superb day at the #arksoane26 conference, as always! Came away with a ton of ideas about making our A Level course more engaging and knowledge-rich, as well as using stories and place at GCSE and what themes the Haitian Revolution can reveal to Y8. Prof Richard Evans' talk was a nerdy delight too!

Ready for the RSPB #birdwatch

This paragraph from Hard Times still scarily relevant in 2026.

One of my new favourite activities with A Level classes is spending quality time choosing exactly the right word for an analytical sentence. Today Y12 tried to avoid calling Charles I stupid or arrogant in 1638. These were their initial choices, all discussed and evaluated.

One of my favourite things about parenting a 6-year-old is picking reading books with him at the library 🤩

My god, this book is just phenomenal. And good to know I can legitimately get Hamilton into our OCR Making of America lessons. (Who am I kidding, I would have got him in there anyway)

100% trying this with my Y8s

Ben hitting the nail on the AI head brilliantly again here.

Ah, the serendipity of teaching Y11s about Elizabethan pageantry and the celebration of Accession Day on 17 November.

Just watched Dunkirk (2017) again. Delighted to learn Mark Rylance's character is based on Charles Lightoller, 2nd officer of Titanic who later sailed one of the many "little ships" assisting the 1940 evacuation. He rescued 127 men and the move to avoid a Stuka bomber shown in the film was real.

Woohoo, just got booked onto this! See you there if you're coming too, fellow #historyteachers (you absolutely should)

I just so happen to be teaching two different lessons about India tomorrow: Elizabethan exploration there with Y11 and East India Company rule with Y8. Looking forward to getting stuck into this:

Pete's revamped enquiry here is brilliant, bringing some tricky concepts to life and giving real insight into the seismic changes of my favourite century.

My son is at a church-run holiday club and I'm upstairs in their café learning all about the Making of America to plan the final GCSE unit having switched to OCR B. It's a cracker of a textbook, @apf102.bsky.social !

Just finished Pachinko - as stunning as everyone says it is - and now onto this absolute unit. Thanks @helenpins.bsky.social for the recommendation!

This was a brilliant event last year: can't wait to go again!

YAAAAAASS

www.eventbrite.com/e/ark-soane-history-conference-2026-tickets-1747091470619?aff=oddtdtcreator Following the success of Eamon Duffy's keynote last year, Steve Mastin will host another keynote conversation with a renowned historian. 📚 More details to be announced soon!

Finally a new Early Modern programme on iPlayer 🤓 The Secret Letters of Mary Queen of Scots: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002l6m5 via @bbciplayer

Sixth form opening evening, done. Lovely to see so many current students. The highlight was telling them that if they do A Level History, they'll get to come to the National Archives and see one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence 🤓

Tell me you're planning your new GCSE unit on the Making of America without telling me you're planning your new GCSE unit on the Making of America

Today we said goodbye to a very dear person, the Head of History at my school for many years & when I first started there. Gone long before his time: a good reminder of the impact we have on our students & colleagues even when we've moved on. Rest in peace Andy, and thank you for all you did for me.

Anyone out there teach Edexcel A Level Politics? The team at our school is switching from US Politics to Global and would love some advice. #alevelpolitics #politicsteacher

New blog so that the GCSE historical stories that myself and @benbassett.bsky.social have worked on can be shared with the wider history teaching community. Enjoy. open.substack.com/pub/petejack... #historyteacher

Loved this book. It was a very good choice of Mother's Day present from my 5-year-old son (ahem, husband). Can't seem to get enough different perspectives of the mid 17th century! Very well told by Lucy Moore, using Ann Fanshawe's receipt book (more like a memoir and recipe collection combined).

Dear God. Contemplating the nightmare scenario of a Reform government, I can't help thinking of teachers in Germany in 1933 and the awful dilemma many of them found themselves in. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Had such a great day teaching Y10 about the Nazi police state, Y9 about Britain joining WW1 and Y13 about the radicalisation of the New Model Army. But the highlight was a couple of my Y10s staying behind to show me these Nazi coins from the early 1940s!

Labour should absolutely give Reform a pasting on the grounds of being pro-Putin and massively unpatriotic pt 234

Hampton Court again today, and it was my turn to be the tour guide. I'm so mean though explaining that the Haunted Gallery almost definitely didn't have Katherine Howard running down it to plead for mercy, as Gareth Russell explains in...

Today was Hampton Court, baby! First of three visits with Y11 for their History Around Us site study for OCR B. It didn't disappoint!

Spent an excellent evening at the @histassoc.bsky.social W Surrey branch lecture by Alex Walsham on persecution & faith in the early modern era. 8 of our students came too - so satisfying to see them recognising the key terms and events they've been studying. Edwards' Gangraena only this afternoon!

I'm apparently not organised enough to have started a book thread earlier in the year, but I'm reading Shy Creatures at the moment and it's just extraordinary. Anyone else?

Love these suggestions: will definitely be implementing several in the next term!

Just got an advert for David Irving's book on YouTube 🤢

@pamc86.bsky.social Lovely to see you virtually Pam! How are you?

This a symptom of my deep denial about the end of the summer holidays. Not content with buying three new books from our brilliant new indie bookshop, I picked up another three from the library 🙈

Ben speaks for me too. He always finds the right words.

Superb interpretation of Raleigh from the 1972 Ladybird book, Some Great Men and Women. #ocrbhistory #theElizabethans

It is time. My 5-year-old asked (I promise he asked) me to tell him about history. In his words "from the start of time." We've started with the Middle Ages. I got that Sainsbury's Kings & Queens book when I was a child and it's one of the main reasons I'm a History teacher now.

Just urned off my 6am alarms. Might have another early wake up for our holiday in the Netherlands but apart from that: back of the net!

Went on the best run this morning. Gorgeous River Wey Navigations, built in the 1650s, and a bit more local history 🤓

To try to improve students' chronological memory, our department is going to colour-code main eras of British history as per GCSE depth studies. Cue fierce debate about which colour each era feels like. For me: Middle Ages = green Early modern = orangey Industrial era = dark blue Modern era = purple

I was warned about primary class WhatsApp groups. But as usual with any aspect of parenting, I held onto my mindless optimism card (thanks, Lieutenant George) and thought, "How bad can it be?" The answer is bad. Very very bad.

It's arrived! It's absolutely stunning. Can't wait to get stuck in.

5-year-old has just discovered Oasis, but keeps singing the words of DLBIA as "so Sally can wait, she knows it's too late, she's been working all night".

Walking tour of Guildford didn't disappoint. Loads of stories to tell Y7 about their local area now!

Inspired by Michael Riley and Rachel Foster at #HACONF25, tomorrow I'm going on a local walking tour of my hometown to inform new planning in our historic environment. Can't wait to learn and plan! 5-year-old in tow has been promised cake.

This has been in our house for years thanks to Literature-graduate husband. Can't believe it's taken me so long to pick it up, but I love it. (The book, not the cat)

We're holidaying at a Eurocamp in the Netherlands in August, getting the ferry to Calais with an overnight stop off in Bruges. Don't know who's more excited about the chocolate museum there, me or the 5-year-old. The history of chocolate as a window to empire and global trade? Yes please.