Dan Lyndon

You make a valid point Caterina, but unfortunately I have not seen too much of this in the students that I teach. I would like to think however, that with more experience and training from their teacher they should be able to reach higher levels of thinking. I have been reflecting on the seminar that I gave in Toulouse and have come up with the following thoughts: - I initially felt that the first part of the paper I gave was pitched at too low a level, that the audience was fairly well versed in the pros and cons of the internet as a teaching tool. Subsequently, through discussions on this forum, I may have been a bit hard on myself and that many people appreciated the opportunity to revisit these issues and that in some cases new information was being imparted, particularly about webquests. - I was much happier with the second part of the paper, particularly as it respresented a case study of work in practice. I really felt that this was a valuable and valued exercise, after all we should always be looking at the impact of our work in the classroom. - I have been thinking about how I can improve the webquest that I wrote and have focused on the task element. I realise that the task that I have given is too vague (design a booklet to show the contribution that black and asian soldiers made in the first world war) and needs a bit of scaffolding for the pupils. I believe it was Anders that suggested that I add a few directed questions into the task and I will attempt to do that when I have a bit of time. I also will think about Caterina's suggestions about the resources that I have used. Finally I will add an ict element into the assessment criteria. Any other suggestions for improving the webquest would be gratefully received.

Thank you.

Thanks for these links Janos, I am also interested in the software package that you used for your presentation as I thought that it was really impressive. Could you post details of that too?

I agree with Alf, and have a vested interest here which could be helpful, as my partner is an academic at Bristol University who specialises in gender and politics, particularly the question of women's representation and whether it is making a difference. She has her own library! (but unfortunately not on the main topic that was discussed)

A bit of a long shot I know but i was wondering if anyone ahd a copy or even better a clip of the nazi propaganda film Hitlerjunge quex. I saw bits of it when I was doing my MA but that was quite a while ago. I want to use it as part of my lessons about the Hitler Youth for my gcse classes.

I would support what Doug has said, I really had very little idea of my 'audience' and therefore pitched my paper at a far too basic level. I felt that the first part of my paper was not really that helpful, but was happier with the second part that was based on my experiences. Maybe we could ask associates to focus on case studies of 'good practice'?

Just a quick response as I have now got a pile of marking to do which should have been done in half term! I thoroughly enjoyed the Toulouse conference (I have started to call it the European Teacher's History and ICT conference to impress my friends and colleagues) and was very stimulated by the papers that were given. It was also fantastic to share resources and good practice with such a diverse and inspiring group of like-minded teachers. I was not at the final meeting but I would like to see the E-Help website include the following areas: - a place for exciting History / cross - curricular projects that encourages pan-European co-operation which may or may not involve students meeting each other in reality as well as virtually. - collaboration / discussion / teaching materials based on transferable historical skills ie source analysis, interpretation of the past - a portal for sharing ICT resources - I have already downloaded photostory 3 for example and have started planning how to use it with my G&T pupils next week Thanks again to everyone.

And having just watched this presentation at home (I was flying back home when it was shown at the conference) I would like to add my thanks for a very stimulating and expertly presented paper and a brilliant example of online learning.

‘Information is not learning’ Using the Internet as an effective teaching tool Dan Lyndon The World Wide Web has given teachers and students of history access to an ‘information superhighway’ previously unparalleled. However, whilst there are obvious advantages in terms of the resources now available on the Internet, this has not necessarily been translated into the effective teaching and learning of history. This paper will look at the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a teaching tool. It will highlight the benefits of using webquests as a method for ensuring the use of higher order thinking skills when using the Internet. The paper will conclude with a case study looking at a webquest that I have written about the contribution of black and asian soldiers in the First World War (www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm). This was taught to year 9 students in January 2005. There are a number of advantages of using the Internet as a teaching tool. The most obvious concerns the amount of material that is available to both teacher and pupil and the speed of access that has been facilitated. As an illustrative example, when I was preparing the ww1 webquest I was able to find fascinating and inspiring material about the soldiers that fought in the British Army as members of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). This included interviews with some of the surviving veterans, Eugene Clark and George Blackman as well as details of the Taranto Mutiny when soldiers from the BWIR demonstrated their anger against the racial discrimination that they faced at end of the war. In the absence of access to the Internet this would have involved extensive and time consuming research. The fact was that I was able to sit at my desk and spend a few hours searching via Google and poring over extracts from Jamaican and British newspapers amongst other websites. Some of the other advantages of the Internet include the improvement in ICT skills that it provides. A research study (http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/TIPS/gilmour.html) carried out by Nick Gilmour, a teacher in Cambridgeshire found that ‘(the Internet group) produced some excellent project work and demonstrated high levels of ICT skill.’ and that the use of the Internet ‘often stimulates and raises the levels of motivation. The quality of project work is greatly improved with the use of computers.’ Gillian Mead from Chesterton Community College argues that the effective use of the Internet ‘enable(s) students to develop as independent, effective, efficient and discerning electronic information gatherers rather (than) remain as serendipitous and credulous surferbrowsers’ (http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/TIPS/mead.html). However, there are undoubtedly a number of concerns about the use of the Internet as an effective teaching tool. The most striking observation is that ‘information access alone, without a means for learning the information ‘effectively’, or, a means for turning information into knowledge, results in numerous design faults, namely information overload and navigation problems.’ (Jones and Scully http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/1998/issue2/jones2.html). Another problem is that the use of the internet can be a frustrating learning experience with the pupils lost in a web of irrelevant and inappropriate material. The vast majority of material on the Internet is not designed for pupils of a school age and unless pupils are taught the skills necessary to search the internet effectively they often become frustrated as they search in vain. There is also the misconception that the answer to everything can be found at the end of a Google search. Some pupils also find themselves far too easily distracted by the pop ups, banners and games, cars, music, football etc sites that are only a URL away when the teacher isn’t looking. However the most pressing concern is the passivity of many pupils involved in Internet research. The temptation to cut and paste chunks of unread text is seemingly too hard to resist for many pupils resulting in the acquisition of knowledge without the processing that is so vital for a deeper understanding. The Internet is not a substitute for the good teacher; whilst it can deliver a wide amount of resource material it can not adapt to the needs of the individual student. There are a variety of ways that these disadvantages can be overcome to enable the Internet to become an effective teaching resource. The problems of passivity can be solved by creating teaching material that forces pupils towards information processing rather than research gathering. The most obvious example of this is the use of webquests to which I will turn to shortly. The problems of pupils getting ‘lost’ can be overcome by a number of strategies: pupils can be trained to use search engines more effectively, particularly by honing down the searches with the use of keywords. Alternatively the use of a ‘portal’ which guides the pupils towards pre-selected websites can allow the teacher to direct the pupils to the most appropriate resources. Finally there needs to be an increase in the number of teacher created websites, with differentiated material and tasks that encourage higher order thinking skills and are adapted to the needs of the pupil. A webquest is an online lesson or series of lessons using the Internet as a resource bank. A successful webquest engages the student with an enticing ‘hook’ and requires students to complete a task, often using other ICT applications, that encourages the development of higher order thinking skills. The structure of a webquest follows a particular format; Introduction – This is the initial stimulus material that acts as a ‘hook’ for the student and engages them with the task. This could be either a real life situation, for example the Amistad slave ship case or a fantasy scenario, for example a time machine has been invented to take the students to a place or event in history. Task – This is the opportunity for the teacher to be as creative as possible. The task must have a realistic and achievable outcome but could take any variety of formats ranging from a whole class debate to a multimedia presentation to a simple written description. Process– As a tool for enhancing independent learning the Webquest guides the student through a series of step-by-step processes to enable the task to be completed. This may involve working individually or as part of a larger group with individually assigned roles. The student should also be given guidance in how to complete the task. This may take the form of ‘scaffolding’ whereby the student is able to build up knowledge through a series of smaller task, or may involve the use of directed questions, concept mapping, tables and worksheets. Resources - One of the fundamentals of the Webquest is the use of the World Wide Web as a resource bank. A crucial aspect is that the student is guided to the most appropriate resources and not left to drift aimlessly in ‘hyperspace’. This may involve differentiated resource pages with a page devoted to the key websites and a second page for additional resources. Students are not necessarily limited to using the Internet. There is a wide range of (electronic) resources available including e-mail, videoconferencing, using databases and forums. Students could also use material from their school and local libraries or from their teacher. Evaluation – This provides the student with the marking criteria and allows them to understand how they will be assessed as an individual and part of the team. This insight encourages the student to become self-evaluative and provides the ‘critical steps’ that are needed to make further progress. Conclusion – This allows the student to evaluate the progress that they have made and provides an opportunity for further exploration. This may be achieved through the addition of further questions or stimuli that may arise from the original task. There are many advantages to the use of Webquests; q The creation of the Webquest is straightforward for any teacher that has a basic competency in ICT – there are various templates that can be used such as this one from the Webquest website: []http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html] q The teacher can adapt a task to the appropriate needs of their classes and to individual students. This can be done by varying the complexity of the task and by allocating different roles within the Webquest. q The use of Webquest is an excellent motivational tool. Students can engage in real-life enquiry based activities and have the opportunity to create a valuable end product. q Webquests can encourage team building skills in order to achieve a collective task as well as enhancing individual skills in a wide variety of ways; literacy, ICT, numeracy, communication, problem solving. q Webquests often depend on the use of higher order thinking skills. Students will need to synthesise material from a wide range of sources and the task may require the evaluation of a particular interpretation or event. Case study – the black and asian soldiers in the First World War webquest http://www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm I wrote this webquest over a period of three days in the Christmas holidays 2004 and subsequently spent a few hours tightening up different sections after receiving feedback from colleagues and members of the History Teacher’s Discussion Forum. I tried it for the first time in January with two classes of year nine pupils in the top and middle ability sets having previously studied the causes of WW1 and Trench Warfare. The students were in the computer suite for three lessons. The black and asian soldiers in the First World War webquest asks students to imagine that they had been commisioned to write a booklet for primary school children about the contributions that soldiers from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean made to the war. This task meant that pupils had to use higher order thinking skills to synthesise the appropriate material and produce an outcome that was different from the original material they had used. They were guided to the best resources via this page (resources page) which was differentiated to allow access to the key resources as well as being hyperlinked to further resources if needed (extended resources page). I also included a self assessment sheet that can be looked at here (assessment page) which required the pupils to grade themselves on different criteria ranging from how many websites they used (this was deliberately scored to encourage them not to use too many), how appropriate their language was (I was hoping to cut out as much cutting and pasting as possible) and their effort. I now realise that I should have also included a section about their ICT skills. I was fairly disappointed by the majority of the results, but I will add the proviso that this was the first time that any of the students had used a webquest before: - too many of the students had simply lifted chunks straight from the various websites that they used. - those who had 'strayed' from the websites that I recommended often went completely off the track - one student ended up writing about Franz Ferdinand! - There was little thought put into the presentation of the booklets - they were good at making it look colourful, but the layouts were cluttered and (a personal bugbear) the text was not justified and hyphenated as it stretched across two lines. Some didn't even bother with any colour at all and wrote it in Word - v dull. - some of the lower ability students found the webquest too daunting and in their words 'too long'! This was despite my attempts to really narrow the resources to a bare minimum with a differentiated page for those who wanted further research However, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. One of the best booklets was produced by a dyslexic pupil who really thought carefully about what to include, kept the text to an appropriate amount and in accessible language, clearly presented the work and made good use of images. The best booklet was produced by a student who managed to cover a range of contributions and presented his work effectively: http://www.comptonhistory.com/ww1%20webque...%20soldiers.pdf So, my overall thoughts about this series of lessons. Well, like everything I will not be put off because it didn't work first time, I shall continue to give the classes experience of webquests and I am confident that they shall get better at working with them. I also think that our pupils are now so much more ICT savvy that we can really focus on the historical content and allow that to engage and drive the pupils further in their ICT work. One other positive that I can take out of this is that the vast majority of the pupils genuinely were interested in the topic and learned a lot - probably, no certainly a lot more than they would have learned from a worksheet. Whilst there are obvious advantages to using the Internet in the classroom, such as the speed of access to a wide range of sources, it is imperative that students are encouraged to process the material they find rather than passively accepting it at face value. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use webquests as a vehicle for developing higher order thinking skills and using the Internet as a resource for guided research. Information is not learning, it’s what you do with it that counts.

As I have been writing my presentation it has developed along sufficiently different lines to warrant a new entry: ‘Information is not learning’ Using the Internet as an effective teaching tool The World Wide Web has given teachers and students of history access to an ‘information superhighway’ previously unparalleled. However, whilst there are obvious advantages in terms of the resources now available on the Internet, this has not necessarily been translated into the effective teaching and learning of history. This paper will look at the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a teaching tool. It will highlight the benefits of using webquests as a method for ensuring the use of higher order thinking skills when using the Internet. The paper will conclude with a case study looking at a webquest that I have written about the contribution of black and asian soldiers in the First World War (www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm).

Is there a demand for black history courses at my school? I am not sure if this is the right question. Should there be a demand for black history courses? yes. Is there? sort of. Why do I give that answer, well as a white middle class male (yes another one!) who has a passion for teaching multicultural British history I find myself in a difficult position. I have tried to increase not only the amount of black history taught in my school and integrate it into the school's history curriculum. I have run a very successful Black History Month celebration for the last 5 years and have produced online teaching material to support all of this. The problem is that I / we should not have to be in a position where I / we need to do all of this, but I have met very few black historians and even fewer black history teachers in the UK. The consequence of this is that there is not a huge amount of consciousness amongst the black (and white) pupils that I teach and hence not the demand for these courses. I would be absolutely delighted if there were and I would happily retire to pass on the baton to the next generation. A few years ago I took a group of students to the Tabernacle in Notting Hill as part of a radio debate about Black History Month. It was a very passionate and heated debate and there were many people in the audience arguing that BHM had been hijacked by the white m/c liberal agenda. When I was asked to speak I was heckled by a group of young Pan Africanists and by a journalist on the platform. To my surprise I was supported by a speaker from the Nation of Islam who praised me as a 'brother' who should be respected for bringing his students to the debate in the first place. I wasn't bothered about the heckling but my students were a bit upset that their teacher had been 'disrespected'. I told my boys that I was very happy to be heckled because I wanted to debate with the Pan Africanists, and that at least this was a group of young people who were passionate and knowledgable about their heritage and were 'conscious'. I have always hoped to have students in my school / lessons that would be able to argue their case, after all that is what makes them good historians. My most recent lessons with my year 8s have also reinforced the need for multicultural history in our schools today. I put up an image of the Drake Jewel, which is shown here: and this led on to a debate about immigration and asylum as I hoped it would. The attitudes of some of the white students could only be described as totally racist and ignorant. I allowed them to spew out their Daily Mail spleen (reassuring the other students that this was a controlled environment and that these views should be challenged by them if not by me) and then explained how over the next few lessons I would prove them wrong. Today I showed them a bar chart to prove that there are not 'millions' of Somalis in England but in fact officially 20,000. The same number of estimated Africans living in England during Elizabethan times. We then discussed why Elizabeth was unsuccessful in repatriating the 'blackmoors' from England and will go on to further discussions about the positive contributions that people from different ethnic mniorities have made to this country.

Using the Internet to teach Black and Asian British History In January 2005 the Conservative Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins wrote "in days gone by there was a saying that certain events and historical facts were matters "which every English schoolboy knows". There is a concern that these 'events and historical facts' may well herald a return to the days of 'dead white males' being the focus of the history curriculum. I would like to discuss how a muticultural British History can be integrated into the school curriculum and look at how the Internet and online activities such as Webquests can be used to promote this inclusive and engaging approach. I intend to look at a few examples of the resources available and use the webquest that I wrote about the contribution of Black and Asian soldiers in the First World War as a case study. The expansion of available material about black and asian british history would not have been possible without the development of the World Wide Web, but the challenge comes in creating teachers and students that are skilled enough to use the material effectively.

John, as usual you have produced a fantastic resource, I honestly don't know where you find the time and the information! My one concern about this simulation is that many of my students would find the vast amount of information very intimidating. To quote them they would say ' This is long, sir'. If I can make a suggestion I would propose that you look again at the sources and produce a differentiated version with a section that is pared down to what you consider the absolute essentials - possibly no more han 2 sources representing the different views. If you guided the pupils through this then they would feel much more comfortable I am sure. Of course you will have all of the other material for those pupils who want to develop their knowledge further.

You are absolutely spot on in a number of areas John. I will certainly perservere with these type of activities, they are far too important to drop. I liked your point about Edward (my dyslexic student), I really felt that he was able to get stuck into this project, and I think that his excellent use of ICT has also been helped by the fact that it positively helps him to overcome his dyslexia and he has been using a computer at home for many years now. I think that you have made a very good suggestion about a lead up lesson, this would be a very good model for the students and a good way of looking at historical interpretations too.

I have been spending a lot of time recently on a webquest about black and asian soldiers and the first world war (here) and I road tested this for the first time with my year nines last week. The basic premise of a webquest is that it is an online lesson with resources from the Internet and often requiring pupils to use ICT applications such as DTP or presentation software. This particular webquest asked students to imagine that they had been asked to write a booklet for primary school children about the contributions that soldiers from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean made to the war. The task meant that pupils had to use higher order thinking skills to synthesise the appropriate material and produce an outcome that was different from the original material they had used. I also included a self assessment sheet that can be downloaded from here((assessment page) which required the pupils to grade themselves on different criteria ranging from how many websites they used (this was deliberately scored to encourage them not to use too many), how appropriate their language was (I was hoping to cut out as much cutting and pasting as possible) and their effort. I now realise that I should have also included a section about their ICT skills. I must confess that I was disappointed by the majority of the results: - too many of the students had simply lifted chunks straight from the various websites that they used - those who had 'strayed' from the websites that I recommended often went completely off the track - one student ended up writing about Franz Ferdinand! - There was little thought put into the presentation of the booklets - they are good at making it look colourful, but the layouts were cluttered and ( a personal bugbear) the text was not justified and hyphenated as it stretched across two lines. Some didn't even bother with any colour at all and wrote it in Word - v dull. - some of the lower ability students found the webquest too daunting and in their words 'too long'! This was despite my attempts to really narrow the resources to a bare minimum with a differentiated page for those who wanted further research However, there is a light at the end .. the best booklet was done by a dyslexic pupil who really thought carefully about what to include, kept the text to an appropriate amount and in accessible language, clearly presented the work and made good use of images. When I have worked out how to transfer it from the school network onto my flash drive I will put it on my website. So, my overall thoughts about this series of lessons. Well, like everything I will not be put off because it didn't work first time, I shall continue to give the classes experience of webquests and I am confident that they shall get better at working with them. I also think that our pupils are now so much more ICT savvy that we can really focus on the historical content and allow that to engage and drive the pupils further in their ICT work. One other positive that I can take out of this is that the vast majority of the pupils genuinely were interested in the topic and learned a lot - probably, no certainly a lot more than they would have learned from a worksheet. I would be interested in any feedback that people have about how I could improve the webquest further.

I have been getting into webquests over the last year and have started to write some of my own: www.webquests.comptonhistory.com/ A webquest is essentially an online lesson based on a particular format (introduction, task, resources, assessment and conclusion). The most recent webquest that I have written is on the contribution of black and asian soldiers to the First World War black and asian soldiers in WW1 webquest. I am currently 'testing' this with my year 9s (13-14) and so far I am really pleased with their responses to the task. I shall let you know how they get on as they progress. The beauty of the webquest is that you can be as flexible as the world wide web allows you to be - you can have a huge number of resources or can narrow it down to a very specific enquiry. The use of ICT also allows the student to be as creative as they choose - in the WW1 webquest the students can use DTP software such as Publisher or presentation software such as Powerpoint to produce a booklet for primary school children.

I think that LGBT History month is a great idea and as a teacher in an inner city all boys school I am becoming increasingly worried about a whole range of issues around tackling homophobia and promoting positive attitudes towards different sexualities. I regularly wear an AIDs ribbon and I am horrified that so many students don't even know what it represents. I also have to challenge on a daily basis the same kind of homophobic comments that I am sure we all hear in the playgrounds and sometines in the classroom (and sometimes the staffroom). As someone who has also actively promoted and raised the level of awareness of Black History Month and Holocaust Memorial Day I see this as very much part of the same process. However if I am being totally honest I foresee many more difficulties in promoting LGBT History month, though of course that should not prevent me from starting small and building up gradually. If anyone has any suggestions of a small scale starting point I would be most interested.

John can you please send me a copy too, this would be ideal for my year 8 work on the impact of slavery. Could you give me an idea of some of the characters involved and maybe explain what the main task is and how it will work in the classroom.

I totally agree with everything that John says. It is frustrating to say the least that BHM is still needed in 2004. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed, I would suggest, before things move on: 1) greater awareness amongst classroom history teachers of the major contribution that people from minority ethnic backgrounds have ade. Now how this happens is more challenging and it seems to me that there has to be pressure from different areas - pupils, parents, , historians, cultural commentators, the ethnic communities - for teachers to teach this history. 2) An awareness from Heads of History that the National Curiculum is now so flexible that a much wider curriculum can (and should) be taught. In my eyes the 'battle' has been won here, but the 'war' is being lost. Last term we had an HMI inspection that focused on combatting racism in schools. I was interviewed by the two inspectors who were very explicit in supporting my attempts to introduce a multicultural history curriculum at my school. They had absolutely no disagreement with my 'flexible' interpretation of the NC and positively encouraged it. 3) There must be a greater involvement of the minority ethnic communities in becoming history teachers and educators. I have unfortunately only met a handful of black history teachers / academics and I have been teaching in London for 12 years and actively involved in promoting multicultural history for the last 6 years. I have had the pleasure of working with a few black historians but they are in an absolute minority and don't reflect the representation of ethnic minorities in London in particular. I have occasionally been criticised for the BHM events that I have held (particularly as I have renamed it Black and Asian History Month at my school) and I am an easy target as a white middle class male (albeit with a Jewish upbringing which at least makes me an ethnic minority!). I argue that I am on the 'right side' and until someone in my school wants to take ownership of BHM then I am damn well going to make sure that these celebrations take place. this equally applies to the teaching material that I have produced such as The Olaudah Equiano webquest and the The Black Britons webquest.

A bit more research from http://www.africawithin.com/jeffries/aapart22.htm has unearthed this which begins to answer your question:

This is not an area that I have any great knowledge of however I was able to find this information from the http://www.studyworld.com/1775.htm website. However it does give information about the opposite of what you were asking!

We recently held a gifted and talented day with an outside speaker / facilitator and the topic that we were looking at was about genetic disease and DNA. However we somehow got onto discussing diseases such as the plague and one of the students asked this question: Is it true that the bubonic plague might not have been spread by fleas after all?

Thanks Martin for revealing these fascinating insights into the history of your school. I have done a similar thing using the log book for my school, Henry Compton, formerly Fulham Central Secondary. I was able to scan in part of the log book showing the Air raid Drill during the First World War and together with a variety of other extracts was able to produce some teaching material. You can find the worksheets here: http://www.comptonhistory.com/yr9work.htm and if you scroll down and look for the PDF file called Henry Compton Log Book you can download it. Some of the highlights included: 1917 August 28 - Instructions on Air Raids. If there is ample time the class … to be brought into the lower hall; if not to remain in the Centre October 22 - Officer H fetch the 40 bedrests made to instructions of Mr Caroline for wounded soldiers - Letter to the Headmaster re the above , expressing thanks of the committee to the boys and instructors for making the bedrests from the Wounded Emergency Fund November 8 - close after morning session for three half days holiday in honour of three ’old boys’ earning military distinction: E Green, military medal; George Brown, military medal; V Craft, military medal 1918 May 14 - “On the morning after an air raid, when the all clear signal is given after 10 pm: school opens at a quarter to ten instead of quarter to nine” Note from Headmaster November 11 - Signing of Armistice: AM half hours play, national anthem sung and theLord’s Prayer. PM work as usual 1.30-2.30: Play 2.30-3.00: Songs 3-3.30: Dismissal November 28 - Visit of Mr Saunders to the school after 4 years internment as a prisoner of war in Germany. He gives a short account of his experiences to the assembled staff and scholars. I was fortunate enough to be lead a session on the impact of WW1 on my school at a workshop held by Villiers Park Educational Trust in Foxton, Cambridge and it worked really well.

From what I have gleaned about the report I think that it is a very good set of ideas in principle. I like the vocational / academic cross, which is particularly apt for some of the students that I teach. I also like the reduction in the coursework as that is more of a nightmare year on year. I haven't taught A Level since 2000 and so missed out all the changes introduced in that year and probably won't be teaching it for a couple more years so possibly there will be some clearer idea of the changes there. I think the biggest concern is whether this will actually be implemented in the way in which Tomlinson suggests. I very much doubt this will happen. There is too much conservatism in the education system especially where the A Levels are concerned, whilst at the same time an almost irresistable temptation to 'tinker'. It is a shame that this report wasn't written a few years ago when either the GCSE / AS was introduced which would have saved schools alot of change. I already know a couple of students who have started an international baccalaureate in a sixth form college, it will be interesting to see how they get on.

May I follow Mike's example with a little anecdote which I guess sums up my approach to teaching History. I have recently entered two year nine students (13year olds) into the 'Black History Challenge' a competition for schools about British Black history based on the Peter Fryer book, 'Staying Power'. I had no idea about the style of questions that were going to be asked, and was daunted by the vast amount of text that the students were expected to cover (for those of you unfamiliar with the book it is about 400 pages and more often used at A Level or higher). I prepared my boys by discussing the main themes in the book, for example black abolitionists or black radicals and most of the work was focused around understanding the context in which these people operated and the struggle that they were fighting for. I was not expecting questions such as what year was Olaudah Equiano born?, which is what we got. In fact all of the questions were simply testing recall and I found it incredibly frustrating. Fortunately the boys won through the first round but were knocked out in the semi-finals. I hope and believe that the skills that I helped the boys to develop, in particular the interpretation of key events and individuals, were far more useful than a few facts. I am a strong believer in the SHP / active learning philosophy and only the other day my year 10 class re-enacted Hitler's trial after the Munich Putsch and it was a fantastic lesson. Of course the boys needed the 'facts' to be able to complete the activity and the fact that they were able to produce such high quality speeches clearly showed they had a good grasp of the details. I can't believe that they would have got as much out of an essay or even source work about the same topic. It is a lovely fantasy but wouldn't it be great if students could do part of their GCSE / A Level exams with these kind of activities.