If your CV doesn’t already include membership of a subject association then it’s probably time to give it some serious thought. A professional association can offer you so much and is a valuable component in your professional development. It enables you to be part of a subject community, it keeps you up to date in your subject, you get access to dedicated resources and expertise, and are supported to pursue your own learning.
For history teachers, the association you should certainly be considering is the Historical Association, an experienced and specialist voice for history. There are plenty of perks; secondary membership gives you full access to all online secondary resources, copies of quarterly journal Teaching History and access to past editions, digitised classic pamphlets, online CPD, discounts on CPD courses/ events and access to a Podcast Timeline; and all this for just £56 if you sign up as an individual or £104 for a school with three extra staff logins and a student username and password so that learners can access all the resources in the Student Zone. The HA website offers more besides including a forum, news, competitions, CPD units and guides, and advice on becoming a Quality Mark School. This is a Champagne resource for lemonade money.
Make the most of it
As a member, it’s important to take advantage of the full range of what’s on offer – and with the HA, you certainly won’t be short of choice. In terms of curriculum support, for example, the HA devotes a cavernous section to it where you will find an absolute treasure trove of resources to help you develop and refine your subject knowledge and understanding. There is also guidance related to the revised version of the 2014 National Curriculum, as well as on-going developments with GCSE and A level specifications.
You can follow links for the KS3 National Curriculum, advice on curriculum planning for KS3, and links assessment and planning for KS3. All the links feed into erudite articles, thought-provoking podcasts, superb modules, CPD units, and helpful pamphlets. Furthermore there are links to schemes of work and workshop materials from annual conferences. It’s a history teacher’s dream – and even as a non-specialist I found plenty to interest and engage me, such as the HA’s must-read FAQ guide for life without levels, along with a set of guiding principles to help plan for assessment and to assess pupils’ progress. Top quality resources and materials abound for GCSE, AS and A level qualifications and if you just want to find out about one particular period in time then you can do that by searching by period and region.
One of the most exciting elements of the HA collection can be found in the podcasts section, where you will find bitesize audio clips of 15-20 minutes by leading historians who strip the history down to its bare essentials. The podcast series has been split by period – namely Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern and the Modern World. The individual podcasts can be accessed via a truly fabulous podcast timeline that is very easy to use and all can be downloaded for use in class, for boosting your own knowledge or listening for pleasure.
Further reading
Articles, journals and publications occupy an important position within the HA website, where there is a devoted section to further support your subject knowledge, professional development, curriculum thinking and planning. In this part of the website there are digital versions of every article, pamphlet and journal pertinent to all history teachers from KS3 to A-level.
These include the leading professional journal for history teachers Teaching History, packed with stimulating and relevant articles enabling you to keep bang up to date and perfect for informing your performance management. Not only can you search whole editions or by article, web trails have been created to help with key topics, skills and concepts. Membership enables you to access a classic pamphlet series and there are two further journals: History is a real minds-on publication for helping you explore and reflect key issues, ideas and processes (requiring an additional subscription); and then there is the International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, which reports on research and developments from around the globe. Schools can also subscribe to the Historian (ow.ly/TWH26).
The current, busy website of the Historical Association might be a tad too dry for some and can be a little tricky to navigate at times – but there’s no doubting the quality of the content. Besides, a radical overhaul is underway to bring it totally up to date, making it more user-friendly and offering unique functionality; the new site will go live in January 2016.
If you are a history teacher then there are bound to be issues around your subject that concern you, which is why joining the HA makes perfect sense. It promotes scholarly discussion, advances teaching and learning, enhances your career development and acts as a source of inspiration. If I were a history teacher then I’d find it indispensable to support my lifelong learning and to ensure I was teaching my subject as well as possible.
