HISTORY TEACHER | lead EXAMINER | HEAD OF DEPARTMENT | WANNABE entrepeneur
Hello everyone!
Thank you so much for being here. I cannot tell you how nervous I am about the whole 'advertising' side of things. I'm a typical Yorkshire lass in that I'm a frugal spender who doesn't like flashy sales pitches but for this project most of my marketing advice has come from American content creators on podcast shows. They make it all sound so easy, as long as you sell, sell, sell. That's just not me. I'd rather just show you what I've made and hope you see how useful it is. Whether your parents, student or, like me, a teacher.
So, a little about me. I've been teaching now for twelve years and have been a Head of Department for seven of those years, across two different schools. I also have ten years of experience as an examiner - firstly for GCSE for the Medicine through Time, Tudors and Elizabethan England units. More recently I have been an AQA A Level examiner for the Tudors, and for the past two years I have also been a team leader. I firmly believe that my experience as an examiner has been the best CPD for me as a teacher and every year I tinker with my curriculum based upon my experience of marking in the previous summer. And every year, my key philosophy is reinforced. It isn't how much you know that gets you a good grade in History - it's how well you understand it and so how well you can explain it.
I was also a Pastoral Leader to Year 11 in 2020/1 - the second COVID year. I watched as education changed forever, while we all fuddled around trying to log onto Teams. I saw the darker side too - the students who were too petrified of walking back into the school building but were still really keen to get on with their studies at home. Going back to ye olde textbooks just doesn't feel right. I've also seen how other subjects have strong digital learning options available - especially Maths and the Sciences. But there's a perception that creating a robust, all-in-one pathway to success for GCSE and A Level History is too hard. The subject is too subjective. Knowledge recall tests only tell one part of the story, and that's the only automated, digital method to assess student progress. So what I've put together is a little different. It relies far less on factual recall and rote learning, and far more on understanding the key concepts and themes that underpin the important events of History. I've also used AI to create artwork that should immerse students into the stories and experiences of the past. That way, they're going to want to watch a video more than once, and by doing so, they can fully grasp the key concepts of each topic - alongside, of course, the powerful facts that they can deploy in support of any answer.
Please do have an explore of this website and the Vimeo channel. I am still very much in the early stages (what the marketers call 'pre-seed beta launch stage' - basically I'm a nobody with a pocket full of dreams). Only with the support of fellow teachers, parents and other education professionals can this ambition grow into something truly transformational for our young people.
