Teach Secondary Issue 14.2

+ How should a teacher respond when they discover that a student engages in self-harming behaviours? +Why you should thank your students for doing what you ask, before they actually do it + Researchers shed further light on precisely how and why sleep is good for students’ wellbeing + The key points of cyber security advice your students should be told + Public Accounts Committee highlights just how bad things are with SEN provision + The instrument recycling scheme that’s hoping to help schools equip their music departments +When it comes to lesson delivery, one size doesn’t necessarily fit all – so here are some ways of ensuring every student remains engaged CONTRIBUTORS HUGH RICHARDS Head of history at Huntington School, York LAUREN HITCHCOCK Researcher at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge ROBIN LAUNDER Behaviour management consultant and speaker SIMON POLLARD Managing director, Millers Music ZEPH BENNETT PE teacher and school achievement leader LEARNING LAB IN THIS ISSUE VISUALISING HISTORY ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hugh Richards (@hughrichards.bsky.social) is head of history at Huntington School, York; he will present a free Historical Association webinar about his use of ERA in the classroom on 15/05/25 at 4pm – sign up at history.org.uk Thinking about … H istory teachers can argue about pretty much anything – whichmakes it odd that we don’t often discuss the use of video clips in the classroom. They’re a staple of history lessons everywhere, but rarely mentioned in CPD, books or blogs. It’s as though they’re some guilty secret. So don’t tell anyone, but using media in lessons is fine . Documentary and historical drama clips aren’t just entertaining filler, but can, in fact, bring rich and multi-faceted historical stories into our classrooms via objects, sites, artefacts and landscapes – all presented by expert historians. We can critique the interpretations of those presenting, which will help build our students’ ability to critically consume broadcast and social media. Above all, quality documentaries and dramas can build richer and fuller historical worlds in our students’ minds. Mike Hill has written persuasively about howwe can consciously build past worlds in students’ minds (see tinyurl.com/ts142-LL1) , arguing that we should place, “ The imagined past at the heart of the curricular planning process. ” I believe we can supplement Hill’s strategies – which include engaging story texts, maps and rich images – with high-quality broadcast media to help curate this imagined space yet further. History teachers have always known the learning potential of using historical video clips, but doing so risks significant pitfalls. Accessing content via traditional streaming platforms can be hard, between dead links and incidents of ‘YouTube roulette’ potentially exposing Y9s to videos or adverts you’d rather they didn’t see – but fortunately, this can now be avoided. Using the ERA video streaming platform (era.org.uk ) has been a revelation. The ERA Licence is funded by the DfE for all state schools in England, and includes free access to a high-quality streaming service designed for classroomuse that utilises archive material from the BBC and Channel 4. Documentaries that present interpretations of leading historians in captivating ways. Historical dramas that help to construct the past as imagined spaces in our students’ heads. Blackadder . There are no adverts, and if you add a video link to your curriculum resources, you can expect it to still be working next year. If a BBC programme is listed as ‘unavailable’, you can file a request for the full programme to be made available, or just specific clips from the parts you want to use. Those clips can then be shared with students for them to view at home, and A Level students even get their own logins. I’ve used ERAmyselg to develop my own subject knowledge, and that of my colleagues. It can enrich a rigorous, academic curriculum, and I’d love to see more teachers using the platform. The more history teachers sign up (for free), and request specific uploads, the more comprehensive its coverage will become. We could even discuss the clips we’re using in lessons. Maybe. 75 teachwire.net/secondary L E A R N I N G L A B