At the start of the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) year most beginning history teachers have two major anxieties:
- Will I be able to manage the behaviour of pupils
- Will I have enough subject knowledge to be able to teach all the different periods of history on the curriculum
I have already addressed the first anxiety in several previous blogs on managing behaviour, and so it is to the second concern I turn my attention here.
The subject knowledge fear
All kinds of students have the subject knowledge fear:
- beginning teachers fresh from university worried about suddenly being faced with teaching periods they have never studied.
- career changers returning to the subject after years away anxious they can’t remember anything at all.
- PhD holders concerned they’ve become so super-specialised they aren’t going to be able to summon the enthusiasm or knowledge required to teach topics outside of these specialisms.
Whatever the background, the feeling is usually the same: the overwhelming sense that everyone else knows more than you.
Slow it all down
When the subject knowledge fear grips, beginning teachers need to slow down. That may sound flippant, but subject knowledge takes time to build. The colleague who appears to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Anglo Saxons, French Revolution and Cold War did not acquire that knowledge overnight. The depth and breadth of their knowledge has been built over many years.
I was recently reminded of this while supporting a beginning teacher who was a career changer. She worried that she had forgotten too much and that everyone else seemed to have facts, examples, stories and juicy nuggets (those bits that teachers drop in that hook and intrigue pupils) instantly available. The reality is that experienced teachers often have fifteen or twenty years of accumulated reading, lesson planning, professional development and classroom discussion behind them. Comparing yourself in your first few weeks to somebody else 15 years in is simply unrealistic.
How to develop your subject knowledge
The encouraging news is that subject knowledge returns far more quickly than you might imagine and can be proactively developed through a wider range of means than trying to read the Wolfson prize shortlist.
So what are my top tips?
Use observations as a tool for subject knowledge enhancement
Spending time in classrooms, watching colleagues teach and talking through lessons with mentors can reactivate the latent subject knowledge hiding deep in your long-term memory. Beginning teachers often underestimate just how much they learn simply by being present and engaging. Every lesson observation adds another piece to the puzzle.
Focus initially on pupil centred subject knowledge enhancement
One of the most effective approaches to rapid, pupil centred subject knowledge development is also one of the simplest. Find a good textbook and read it. Most departments have a dusty store cupboard full of textbook gems – even if they don’t have whole class sets to use with pupils. It is always worth having a poke around in the cupboard and asking mentors for their recommendations.
If you know you will be teaching a particular topic, read around that part of the textbook to understand what leads into and out of the topic. Better still read the whole textbook to develop your wider awareness of key themes and a sense of period. If possible, use a textbook one key stage above the level you are teaching –a GCSE textbook on Elizabethan England is perfect for supporting your own subject knowledge development for teaching Elizabeth I to Year 8, as the additional depth helps you understand the broader narrative and provides valuable context. BBC Bitesize can also provide a really good access point into subject knowledge enhancement for similar reasons.
Read with the same sense of purpose that underpins the historical enquiry the pupils are about to engage in. What are pupils supposed to learn? What historical concept are they exploring? Why has this topic been chosen to illustrate this period/ historical concept? Understanding the rationale of the lesson sequence is vital. Reading with purpose means that you will more effectively develop the subject knowledge you need to teach the lesson effectively.
The other benefit of this type of subject knowledge enhancement is that it helps you to become familiar with the kinds of sources that textbook writers have selected for pupils. This can short cut your workload enormously when trying to find sources to use in evidential enquiries – no longer the hours googling for the perfect source, instead you can go to the already carefully curated collection in the textbook and select an appropriate source to support pupils.
Strengthen your schema
Another useful strategy is to focus on building a broad overview. History can sometimes feel overwhelming because it is so vast and each topic focus can feel disconnected from what has been learnt previously. Spending subject knowledge enhancement time developing a mental framework, or schema, for a wider period(s) gives specific details somewhere to live. New subject knowledge also becomes much more meaningful for pupils when their teachers are able to draw out the connections between periods, for example by pointing pupils back to their work on Magna Carta (1215) when beginning their studies of the Great Remonstrance (1641).
Getting to grips with the grand sweep narrative of British history from c.1000-2000 will, in most English schools, help to provide a strong schema into which you can then situate other more focused and specific subject knowledge enhancement or parallel global history narratives. On a smaller scale, if you are teaching medieval England to Year 7, for example, try to gain a broad understanding of the major developments first. Once you have the overall shape of the period in your mind, individual events and case studies become much easier to place and remember.
If you don’t where to begin with this, check out One Big History Department’s Lists and indices of sources of substantive and disciplinary knowledge , a resource designed for history teachers by history teachers.
Listen to podcasts for efficiency
Podcasts are another incredibly easy win. Most of us have time during the week when our minds are free, but our hands are busy: commuting, cooking dinner, walking the dog, driving between split sites. Listening to history podcasts during these moments can make a surprising difference over the course of a year. Choose your podcasts wisely. Finding lively, engaging presenters who hold your interest while exploring differing interpretations and scope the historiography, are a must if you are to maintain the habit. There are lots of podcasts out there providing quick entry points into topics, often illustrating topics with those juicy nuggets. They are a good starting point from which to build more scholarly understanding.
I always recommend the following to my beginning teachers, but there are, of course, loads more:
Podcasts / Historical Association
BBC Sounds – You’re Dead to Me
World History Podcast on Empires & Colonialism | Empire
Versus History Podcast – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
BBC Sounds – The History Podcast
BBC Sounds – Book of the Week often serialises new history books
Meanwhile, audiobook recordings of popular history books can be a good way to engage with deeper argumentation – although personally, I often find myself wanting to reach for the book itself alongside my listening to check out the footnotes! Always check out
BorrowBox – Your library in one app and Libby using your public library card to access audiobooks for free!
Use magazines to provide digests
At interview we explore how beginning teachers think they will go about developing their subject knowledge as a teacher. Often, we hear very ambitious plans to read 3 or 4 academic articles in preparation for teaching each lesson. Quickly they realise this is not pragmatically possible. However, magazines like the Historian, BBC History Magazine or HistoryExtra provide digests of historians’ work, providing a good access point into the latest developments in the historiography.
Many departments have back issues of these magazines squirrelled away. Failing that you can usually find BBC History magazine in the library or even in charity shops!
Use #historyteacher social media to help you identify subject knowledge enhancement opportunities
Social media can be valuable when used selectively(!) Many history teachers use platforms such as BlueSky (follow the #historyteacher and #HistoryEducation feeds) to share articles, resources, historical debates and recommendations. It is not essential, but it can be a useful way of surrounding yourself with professional conversations about the subject. Additionally, organisations such as the Historical Association, School History Project regularly advertise new podcast series, webinar and conference opportunities for teachers, often focused on common topics taught in schools.
And a big shout out for John Simkin whose website https://spartacus-educational.com/ has been supporting history teachers with subject knowledge development for many a year!
Use the expertise of your peers
If you are fortunate enough to be training alongside other beginning history teachers, you will be surrounded by a veritable smorgasbord of expertise. Use their specialist knowledge of particular periods to help you identify what to read or listen to. Even better, get them to teach you the topic – this will help them practise their explanation skills too, so it is a win win!
Engage in more focused deep historical subject knowledge enhancement where it is needed
While initially beginning teachers need to focus on rapidly gaining a breadth of subject knowledge so they can get started in their teaching, the time will come when there is a need to engage in a deeper and more scholarly way on subject knowledge enhancement. Often this situation presents itself when teaching A level is mooted or when planning a new enquiry for another key stage from scratch. In these situations, there are no real short cuts, although approaching this subject knowledge enhancement through the gateway of a lower level access point first, often makes the process more efficient. This is when mentors and other more experienced colleagues really come to the fore – they need to be sought out for recommendations of what to read so that precious time and energy is expended wisely.
Embrace subject knowledge enhancement as part of the joy
Most beginning history teachers have chosen to become a teacher, at least in part, because they love their subject. Subject knowledge enhancement should therefore not be seen as a chore – it is a joy, not a job to tick off in the ITT year.
In fact, subject knowledge enhancement never really ends. As curricula and historical scholarship evolves, the subject knowledge we need for the classroom must also evolve. Even experienced history teachers continue to learn, and many would argue that a commitment to ongoing learning is one of the defining characteristics of the profession.
Subject knowledge reassurance
And so, to the beginning teacher out there feeling anxious about their subject knowledge – please be assured that all history teachers have gaps. ALL OF THEM.
History is simply too vast for anybody to know everything. We all have areas we love and areas we avoid. Some teachers can talk for hours about the social and cultural impacts of Empire but struggle to summon enthusiasm for Napoleonic military history. Others are fascinated by political history while finding socio-economic history such as the agricultural revolution more challenging. Good history teachers are not people who know everything. They are people who know how to keep learning.
So, if you are at the beginning of your journey and worrying that you do not know enough, take a breath. Read the textbook. Listen to a podcast. Watch experienced colleagues. Read an article and a book. Focus on understanding the bigger picture.
Most of all, trust the process. The knowledge will come, and it will probably come much faster than you think.
Becoming a History Teacher 