Inspired by my summer reading (Bell Hooks’ Teaching to Transgress’ and John Harris’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed, A story of love and connection in 10 songs’), it’s been a summer of reflection. Two years into my Directorship, it felt like it was a good time to take stock and ponder on what has gone well so far and where we can take the Schools History Project in the future.
There certainly have been some very exciting developments: the launch of the SHP regional forums in Yorkshire and the SE have been amazing and the hope is to see a couple more opening up this year; our SHP Understanding events in partnership with the British Library have been really inspiring, with a focus on LGBTQ+ histories, the 1985 Broadwater Farm uprising, and Medieval Women. This year we are looking forward to our new projects on teaching history through an emotional lens, and environmental histories. And we have received some funding to digitise the archive of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association which is a very exciting development.
Our annual conferences continue to go from strength to strength with many new members of the SHP family joining us virtually and in person. Our Developing Teacher’s conferences has grown to include a strand for primary teachers of history, and the summer conference has been significantly enhanced with the introduction of our cultural components with a musician and a poet performing live in Leeds. The workshops being delivered at both conferences continue to be of the highest quality and feedback has been very positive. To find out more about the summer conference from the perspectives of one of our exhibitors you can read this blog from Happening History: SHP Teacher’s Conference 2025 | Happening History.
I am also thrilled to confirm some of our keynote speakers for our 2026 conferences: Dr Sarah Longair will be sharing her work on using material culture in the classroom for our Developing Teachers’ Conference on Saturday January 31st 2026. Our Summer Conference is taking place on the weekend of July 10-12 2026 and Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology (Oxford) will be delivering a keynote about his recent book Every Monument Will Fall. We are also very excited that Distinguished Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington (Adelaide University) will be joining us to talk about Artificial Historians, exploring the role that historians must play in improving GenAI.
All of our outputs are underpinned by our SHP principles (Principles – Schools History Project) and they are going to form the basis of my Director’s blogs for the coming year with a series of guest blogs from SHP Fellows. It is these principles which make the Schools History Project distinct and have always helped inform not just my own practice but so many teachers around the country. Just have a look at the superb work being shared on our Curriculum PATHS page to find some superb examples.
We have also decided that there are going to be some internal changes for SHP over the coming year. We are going to be restructuring the Fellows and Honorary Fellows and creating a new Council which will take an active role in advising and supporting the Director, as well as providing quality assurance for all of our outputs. Some of our current Honorary Fellows have indicated that they would like to step back from the fray, and we are delighted to be joined by our new Fellows Arthur Chapman and Barbara Trapani who are going to make a fantastic contribution to the SHP family.
Finally, we are really keen to hear from any early years, primary or trainee teachers about what CPD they would like at our Developing Teachers’ Conference so please use this form to share your suggestions: https://forms.office.com/e/u1B14iYYhJ. And our call for papers has just gone out for the Summer Conference so if you would like to submit a workshop proposal please use this form: https://forms.office.com/e/UHkC15w52G
So many exciting things to look forward to this academic year!
Dan
