Christine Counsell

Position/Status

University Senior Lecturer

Qualifications

MA (History), PGCE, MEd

E-mail Address

cc247@cam.ac.uk

Phone

01223 767648

Recognition

University of Cambridge Pilkington Prize, 2006, in recognition of excellence in teaching
Historical Association Centenary Fellow, 2006, in recognition of outstanding services to the promotion of the study of history
Editor, Teaching History journal, since 1998
Historical Association: Deputy President 2000-2; Member of Council 1995-2004; Chair of Secondary Committee 1995-7.
Chair, NAGTY History Think Tank, 2005-6.
Consultancy in history education policy for national agencies, including DfE/DfES/DCSF; SCAA/QCA/QCDA; BECTA; TTA/TDA; Ofsted/HMI, throughout 1990s and 2000s. For example:
- Lead consultant in revision of 2008 Attainment Target for National Curriculum for history in England, 2007.
- Provision of non-statutory guidance on implementation of 1991, 1995, 2000 and 2008 national history curricula.
- Steering group of TDA Project HITT, developing materials for the professional development of history teacher trainers, 2005-7
Consultant: Council of Europe (see below)
Consultant: Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood (MLA Learning Links Project) 2010
Educational Associate and Adviser: Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, Cyprus, (UNDP MIDES Project) 2010-11

Profile

Christine taught history in state secondary comprehensive schools for ten years. She spent a year as local authority advisory teacher with responsibility for history in primary and secondary schools in Gloucestershire and three years as deputy headteacher in a comprehensive in Bristol. Since 1995, she has held roles in initial and in-service history teacher education. She was appointed with responsibility for the Secondary History PGCE course at the University of Cambridge in 1997.

Christine has extensive in-service training experience through a national profile of developing literacy across the school curriculum through interdisciplinary working. She has acted as a consultant at national level in many aspects of history education policy and has an international reputation for lecturing, training and consultancy especially in settings where history education is contested or controversial. Christine specialises in supporting teachers in ways of blending secure narrative knowledge with discipline-rooted enquiry, dialogue and argument in classrooms, especially with pupils of diverse background, ability or need. At Cambridge, Christine has developed and researched the academic role of school-based history mentors and built a community of specialist history mentors who own and drive the academic and practical content and standards of the PGCE course. PGCE mentors now make direct use of a wide range of professional and academic literature in their work improving the performance of trainee teachers in schools.

Chief interests

the nature, use and nurture of pupils' historical knowledge;
developing pupils' understanding of the intellectual structure of history as discipline;
improving pupils’ ability to construct extended written argument;
developing pupils’ motivation and capacity to read extended texts;
relationships between knowledge and concept in history teachers’ planning;
the subject-specific professional development of teachers;
forms of interdisciplinarity and curriculum theory;
the changing role of school-based mentors in university-school ITE partnerships;
building capacity of school-based mentors to improve trainee teacher classroom performance.

Invited lectures, seminars and workshops

Working with secondary school teachers, curriculum leaders, regional/national advisers, education researchers and teacher educators, Christine has received invitations to lecture and/or lead seminars, for teachers, scholars, advisers and policy-makers in:

over 70 Local Education Authorities (departmental, whole-school and LA inset);
variety of higher education, school, community and professional association settings throughout UK and in Belgium, Cyprus, Italy, Ireland, Lebanon, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden and New Zealand.

Sample of invitations

July 2011, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Education, New Zealand. Social Sciences Conference: keynote address and workshop.
March 2011, Lebanese Association for Educational Studies, Beirut. Learning and Teaching History: Lessons From and For Lebanon: keynote address 2.
November 2010, University of Karlstad, Sweden. International Patterns of Research in Social Science Didactics Conference: invited lecture, ‘Trends, debates and experiences in history education in England’; workshops (i) ‘Developing mentors of trainee history teachers’; (ii) ‘Practical approaches to historical thinking and argument in school history classrooms’
October 2010, Nicosia, Cyprus. Association of Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) Conference: Developing Historical Understanding: invited workshop series, ‘Developing historical argument in the classroom’ (UNDP-funded)
July 2010, Leeds Trinity and All Saints College. Schools History Project Conference: keynote address, What are students to do with historical change and continuity?
July 2010, Hampshire. Regional Heads of History Conference: keynote address, ‘What are students to do with historical change and continuity?
May 2010, Nicosia, Cyprus. AHDR Seminar: What Does it Mean to Think Historically 6 Years On? invited paper, ‘How teachers structure interplay of content and concept’.
October 2009, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Council of Europe Project: The Image of the Other in History Teaching. Seminar: Partnerships and New Competences needed for History Education in a Multicultural Society: invited paper, ‘Developing the academic role of school-based partners’.
July 2009, Institute of Education, University of London. History PGCE Mentor Conference: Keynote address: ‘Historical change and continuity’.
July 2009, British Library, London. Historical Association and British Library Annual Seminar: invited workshop: ‘Is historical diversity a second-order concept?
July 2009, Leeds Trinity and All Saints College. Schools History Project Conference: workshop with Steve Mastin: ‘reconceptualising historical change in pedagogy: defining the analytic demand of a "change" enquiry taught through narrative shapes’.
June 2009 Institute of Education, University of London. History Special Interest Group Seminar: invited seminar, ‘Developing a hermeneutic-phenomenological study of school-based subject mentors' use of non-context-specific sources’.
March 2009, Sheffield. HA-QCDA-CfBT Regional Conferences on 2008 National Curriculum guidance roll-out, keynote address.
November 2008, Norwich. HA-QCDA-CfBT Regional Conferences on 2008 National Curriculum guidance roll-out, keynote address.
October 2008, University of Malta, Faculty of Education. The Michael A. Sant Memorial Lecture: ‘What do we want students to do with historical change and continuity? Reconnecting with subjective and temporal properties of change’.
July 2008, Leeds Trinity and All Saints College. SHP Conference: invited workshop, ‘Practical approaches to teaching about change and diversity in early Islam’.
December 2006, Nicosia, Cyprus. AHDR with Council of Europe, Seminar: Interactive Methods for Promoting Intercultural Dialogue in Teaching and Learning History, invited paper and workshop for teachers.
October 2005, (i) Agder University College, Dømmesmoen, Norway. Invited subject didactics seminar, ‘Developing history pedagogy’; (ii) University of Oslo, Norway. Norwegian History Teachers Association Conference: keynote address, ‘Build it in, don't bolt it on: linking history, language, literacy and thinking in the classroom’.
July 2004, Bristol. Ofsted/HMI Conference: Interpretations of History: invited talk, ‘“Interpretations of history” in practice: lessons of the last ten years’.
June 2004, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Conference: beyond the Canon - History for the 21st Century: invited paper: ‘Making meaning out of a new curriculum construct: the professional transformation of “Interpretations of history”’.
February 2004, Nicosia, Cyprus. AHDR Launch Conference: What Does it Mean to Think Historically? keynote address, ‘Curiosity, critical thinking and intellectual independence’; workshop (for Greek and Turkish Cypriot history teachers): ‘Historical thinking in practice’.

Current Research Projects

Understanding the experience of history mentors - a hermeneutic-phenomenological study of school-based subject mentors' use of non-context-specific sources.
The uses of the ‘enquiry question’ in mediating content and concept: liminality and hermeneutic play in history teachers’ curricular realisation.

Course Involvement

PGCE

teaches, coordinates and manages secondary history PGCE (team of c30 mentors working in 22 secondary schools)
Chair of Examiners, secondary PGCE
Coordinator of conferences and training for secondary Professional Tutors (school-based leaders of mentor teams)

MEd (Researching Practice)

teaching sessions: ‘Interpretivism in Research’; ‘Writing a Thesis; ‘History Elective’
supervision of students specialising in history education
management of team of five history education supervisors

PPD

60-hour blended learning course for practising history teachers: Shaping Progression in the History Curriculum (3 Saturday conferences, action research in school and on-line support)

PhD supervision

two PhD students

Current external examining

Chief External Examiner, University of Exeter Secondary PGCE course.

Selected Publications

Counsell, C. (in preparation) ‘Uses of the ‘enquiry question’ in mediating content and concept: liminality and hermeneutic play in history teachers’ curricular realisation’.

Counsell, C. (2011, in press) ‘Generating historical argument in the classroom: exploring historical causation and historical change’, in B. Akar (ed) Proceedings of Third Educational Conference, Lebanese Association for Educational Studies

Counsell, C. (2011) 'History teachers as curriculum makers: professional problem-solving in secondary school history education in England' in B. Schüllerqvist (ed) Patterns of Research in Civics, History, Geography and Religious Education, Karlstad: Karlstad University Press

Counsell, C. (2011) 'Disciplinary knowledge for all, the secondary history curriculum and history teachers' achievement', in The Curriculum Journal, Vol.22, No.2. pp201-225.

Counsell, C. (2011) ‘What do we want students to do with historical change and continuity?’, in I. Davies (ed) Debates in History Teaching, London: Routledge

Counsell, C. (2009) ‘Interpretivism: meeting our selves in research’, in E. Wilson (ed) School-based Research, London: Sage

Counsell, C. (2009) ‘Developing a hermeneutic-phenomenological enquiry into mentor experience of using literature with trainee history teachers’, Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Research for Development, May 13-15, 2009, Vol.2, Addis Ababa University.

Counsell, C. (2008) ‘Historical change and continuity: re-connecting with subjective and temporal experience’, The Michael A. Sant Memorial Lecture, in Vella, Y. The Michael A. Sant Memorial Lectures, No.7, Vol. 2, Malta: University of Malta Faculty of Education

Byrom, J., Counsell, C. and Riley, M. (2008) Meetings of Minds: Islamic Encounters, 570-1750, Teachers’ Book, Harlow: Pearson

Byrom, J., Counsell, C. and Riley, M. (2007) Meetings of Minds: Islamic Encounters, 570-1750, Harlow: Pearson

Byrom, J., Counsell, C. and Riley, M. (2005) Citizens’ Minds: The French Revolution, Teachers’ Book, Harlow: Pearson.

Counsell, C. (2004) 'Curiosity, critical thinking and intellectual independence: how have history teachers changed history teaching? How does historical learning change students? Keynote address’, in S. Phillippou and C. Makriyianni (eds) What Does It Mean To Think Historically? Proceedings of the First Educational Seminar by the Association of Historical Dialogue and Research, Nicosia, Cyprus: Association for Historical Dialogue and Research.

Counsell, C. (2004) ‘Looking through a Josephine-Butler-shaped window: focusing pupils’ thinking on historical significance’, Teaching History, 114.

Counsell, C. (2004) Building the Lesson Around the Text: History and Literacy, London: Hodder Murray

Counsell, C. (2003) ‘Putting knowledge, concept and skill back together again: tradition and renewal in the history teaching community in England. Keynote address, Euroclio Annual Conference, University of Bologna 25-30 March 2003’, in Euroclio Bulletin 19: School History on the Move: Changes in History Teaching and Learning in the Decade of Educational Reform, The Hague: Euroclio

Counsell, C. (2003) ‘The forgotten games kit: putting historical thinking first in long-, medium- and short-term planning’, in Haydn, T. and Counsell, C. (eds) History, ICT and Learning, London: Routledge.

Counsell, C. (2003) ‘Fulfilling history's potential: nurturing tradition and renewal in a subject community’. Keynote Address, in Harris, R. and Riley, M. (eds) (2003) Past Forward: A Vision for School History, 2002-2012, Conference Papers, London: Historical Association.

Counsell, C. (2003) ‘History for all’ in Harris, R. and Riley, M. (eds) (2003) Past Forward: A Vision for School History, 2002-2012, Conference Papers, London: Historical Association.

Byrom, J., Counsell, C. and Riley, M. (2003) Citizens’ Minds: The French Revolution, Harlow: Pearson

Counsell, C. (2001) ‘Knowledge, writing and delighting: extending the historical thinking of 11 and 12 year-olds’, The Welsh Historian, No.31.

Counsell, C., Evans, M., McIntyre, D. and Raffan, J. (2000) 'The usefulness of educational research for trainee teachers' learning', Oxford Review of Education, Vol.26, Nos 3 & 4.

Counsell, C. (2000) 'Historical knowledge and historical skills: distracting dichotomy' in J. Arthur and R. Phillips (eds) Issues in History Teaching, London: Routledge

Counsell, C. (2000) ‘Using history to help pupils sort, classify and analyse' Teaching Thinking, 1, 1. Questions Publishing.

Counsell, C. (1999) ‘Subject knowledge, professional knowledge and student teachers' theorising’, in R. Phillips and G. Easdown (eds) History Education: Subject Knowledge, Pedagogy and Practice, St Martins College Lancaster: HTEN.

Counsell, C. (1999) Defining Effectiveness in History using ICT: Approaches to Successful Practice: A qualitative study in two schools, Coventry: BECTA.

Counsell, C. (1997) Analytical and Discursive Writing, London: Historical Association

Recent publications with direct practical classroom impact

January to April 2011, Editorial Adviser and Education Associate for the Cyprus-based organisation, AHDR, in their supplementary materials designed to support history teachers throughout Cyprus, under the Intercultural Dialogue in Education (MIDE) Project, Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, Cyprus (UNDP-funded).

Counsell, C., Samani, H., Georgiou, M., Mavrada, M., Onurkan Samani, M. (2011 in press) The Ottoman Period in Cyprus: Learning to Explore Historical Change, Continuity and Diversity, Nicosia, Cyprus: Association for Historical Dialogue and Research.

General Editor of two series for history teachers. Each blends scholarly and professional knowledge to construct practical guidance, analysis of pedagogic approaches and exemplar material:

History in Practice series, Hodder Murray.

Most recent title in series: Laffin, D. (2009) Better Lessons in A Level History, London: Hodder Murray

Think Through History series, Pearson.

Twelfth and final title in series: Byrom, J., Counsell, C. and Riley, M. (2008) Meetings of Minds: Islamic Encounters, Teachers’ Book, c.570-1750, Harlow: Pearson