Not surprisingly, given the nature

Not surprisingly, given the nature of the lesson,this was the conversation that revealed the most. But there were many hints of it in other interviews. Hence, the various forms of evidence used in the Kennedy lesson had been distributed to particular groups as they 'would allow for differentiation, some were harder than others so Mary and Janine got the hardest one', while in another lesson, the teacher was 'thinking, right,certainly him or her would be able to get all those (ideas) and so and so might not be able to do all that but will be able to get this idea'. Occasionally individuals were mentioned by name and a specific contribution they made was mentioned: 'it's very good having him there because you can always get him to start discussions going'. In other cases it seemed that mention of individuals helped the teacher to explain a general principle that was important to them;'James who's dyslexic and can't write but shows a good understanding orally' served as an example of her knowledge of the different ways in which pupils learn. Similarly for another teacher, her references to individuals highlighted the importance she attaches to confidence: 'Jane, who stayed behind at the end of the lesson, is really quite weak. But she's been asking for additional help and we have been working together - she's gaining confidence and I'm quite encouraged by that.'

Teachers' knowledge about resources and activities

The lessons we saw reflected the availability of diverse forms of resourcing for history lessons and the varied types of activily that are possible. They ranged from a lesson where the resources were many and varied to another in which the resourcing was relatively simple. In some classrooms school-produced resources dominated, in others it was published texts and support materials.Some teachers spoke of using the tried and tested, others about experimenting from year to year. For several of the teachers their talk revealed the strength of match between what they wanted to achieve and the resources and activities they had chosen to use. Several themes emerged from both watching the lessons and talking with the teachers.

The first was the central importance of both the teacher and the pupils as resources in the classroom. All but one of our lessons (and the exception was the castles lesson when the pupils worked in groups throughout the lesson) included a significant amount of question and answer with the whole class,which often developed into discussion. The teachers saw their role here as central, albeit in diverse ways. It might have been to help the pupils to identify key features in propaganda through asking appropriate questions and probing the pupils' responses; it might have been to enable pupils' feeding back to theclass to clarify their ideas so that they would become accessible to others in the class;it might have been to check their understanding; and it might have been to reassure their pupils that they were on the right lines.