Sean Lang's seminal article on evidence and bias. Bias plays a big part in teaching and assessment of history in our schools, but there is suprisingly little written about it. Like empathy, it owes its position to a large extent on to the work of the Schools Council History 13-16 project, which recognized the detection of bias as an important skill which the study of the subject could impart; unlike empathy is has survived into the National Curriculum.
The arrival of sources of evidence into secondary school history classrooms amounted to a small revolution. What began as a radical development is now establishment orthodoxy, with both GCSE and now National Curriculum in England and Wales enshrining its principles. Tony McAleavy pays tribute to some of the thinkers and key lines of thought that made this revolution so enduring. By placing it in a broader historical context he also offers a critical perspective.
Heidi Le Coq argues that the avoidance of trite and formulaic responses to questions about evidence is vital if pupils are to feel that the questions are meaningful. History, she suggests, is simply too exciting, and important, to be abandoned to the cynical manipulation of timeworn phrases.
Claire Riley explains how she developed and improved the ‘layers of inference' diagram-already a popular device since Hilary Cooper's work-as a way of getting pupils fascinated by challenging texts and pictures. Working with the whole ability range in Year 9 she analyses her successes and failures, offering many practical suggestions for moving pupils into rigorous, extended and historically-grounded responses. The significance of her work is the relationship between evidential understanding, period knowledge and the development of literacy.
Christine Counsell describes a lively activity, ideal for Year 9, in which pupils compare and interrelate a collection of sources. The activity leads pupils into thinking about the sources as a collection, and about the enquiry as an evidential problem. Or at least it can do. The article discusses the planning dimension that makes or breaks such an activity.