This is a basic principle of all history teaching but can never be emphasised enough, especially if you are teaching a new topic and are building up your own knowledge of what happened when and why within the period. Students’ misconceptions about a period can seriously undermine their ability to understand the events and explain why they happened. Therefore these misconceptions need identifying, bringing out in the light and discussion.

One example is that students beginning to study the Norman Conquest or the reigns of Richard and John are likely to have the idea that in those periods there was such a person as ‘the rightful heir’, akin to the Prince of Wales today. This affects the way they interpret and explain succession disputes because there was no ‘rightful heir’ in these periods. In the same topics students may also have misleading ideas about national identities and assume that countries have been unchanging entities across time. Similarly students may assume that the only motive for medieval lords was personal gain/ ambition or may underestimate the importance of religion in determining actions in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The natural solution is to address such issues when they first arise within a course but this may be too late as students may then be preoccupied getting to grips with names and events. Therefore there is an advantage in choosing one or two important misconceptions and introducing them to students before you get into the real story of the period so there are fewer distractions.

Similarly, students too often draw conclusions based on present day values when thinking about questions such as ‘What did people at the time believe/look for in a good leader?’ Again it’s important to be very explicit about the contemporary context and make sure students have a clear sense of how past views differed from those today. When teaching Richard I Dale deliberately built in a lesson about constructing the criteria by which Richard would be judged. We explored the duties and responsibilities of a medieval monarch, then compared what was expected of a leader in medieval times to what is expected of a leader today, thus dealing with any misconceptions. It also gave us clear criteria by which to judge Richard – criteria we could refer back to during the rest of the depth study.

And if you’ve not taught a period before you can still prepare by thinking about what’s surprised you when reading in preparation, by asking colleagues or even by using your intuition!

Key Stage 3 watch – should such potential misunderstandings be targeted in KS3 planning and teaching?

See Resource File, Page 10