History KS3 / GCSE: Introducing ClueTubers – A guide for teachers

Carmel Burns:
Hello, I'm Carmel Burns and I've been teaching history at secondary level for 25 years. I understand the challenges you face day in day out in the classroom which is why I'm delighted to presented this series of films aimed at getting to grips with the historic environment. Helping your students to understand the skills required to explore science in context.

Carmel Burns:
Different boards have different requirements when it comes to the historic environment, but in all cases second order concepts are important. Tracking changes, spotting continuities, making causal links and seeking consequences.

Carmel Burns:
This suite of films is designed as an overview to provide initial stimulus material for your students. To help them think about the questions they would need to pose, the details that they would need to look out for, and the skills that they would need to use when examining historic sites.

Carmel Burns:
With the whole of the UK's curricular requirements in mind, we've focused in on four types of sites, including a castle, a military site, an urban environment, and a manor house.

Carmel Burns:
You may choose to show your students the film that most closely aligns with your required site, or you might choose to show all four films across the students learning journey, to reinforce the skills and how they are applied.

Carmel Burns:
To make the series as engaging as possible, the films have been presented by two YouTubers, Vee and Adam. They take on the role of site sleuths exploring the historic sites and looking for clues.

Vee:
Hi, I'm Vee and I'm a classical archaeology and ancient history student at the University of Oxford.

Carmel Burns:
I'm Adam, and I'm a YouTuber, and we're going to show some of the skills that you'll need when you're out and about examining historical sites for GCSE history.

Carmel Burns:
Since classroom time is at a premium and learning is an iterative process, we have worked very closely in the production of the films to take a consistent approach. Vee and Adam apply the following checklist across all the sites visited. They examine an overview of the site in context, the motivation, function and purpose, the key people, and the key features. The films are designed to be versatile and you can use them however you wish in your classroom context. A few suggestions might be that you could use them as stand alone one offs. You might want to have a staggered series to punctuate and motivate your students as they're going through a scheme learning. They're short enough to be used to enhance parental engagement, perhaps linked to the school website or maybe shown in assemblies to wet the appetite or at open evenings. They could form part of a cross-curricular collaboration or investigation. You might even decide to advertise the link in advance so students can use the films as part of a sequence of flip learning in preparation for what's going to happen in class. They could also therefore be used before and after a site visit as an aide memoire.

Carmel Burns:
The films encourage students to think for themselves, posing questions and developing essential study skills like self direction, self regulation and independence. Hopefully they will wet their appetites to get out and about and apply some of the site sleuth skills themselves.

Carmel Burns:
Finally it just leaves for me to say enjoy the series of films and do let us know how you've used them by leaving your comments on the BBC Teach Facebook page.