Welcome to Crafting History!

Hello! And welcome to Crafting History.

Crafting History is an assemblage of different things. It is a one-stop shop for history inspired arts-and crafts sessions, history tutoring, academic offerings, and ideas about history and how we teach it. These different strands are connected by Crafting History’s core principle: when we learn about the past and then produce an account of what we learn, we are not simply re-telling the past, we are creating our own version of the past. Crafting History is run by me, Katy Wallace (Katherine E. Wallace for academic publications). I am a history educator with nearly fifteen years' experience of teaching history and history education in various settings including state and independent schools in the UK, online and in-person tutoring, and universities (UK and international). I currently work part-time as a Lecturer in History Education and Education at UCL alongside running Crafting History.

Crafting History is a specific approach to history teaching. There are many ways to teach history and many different types of history teacher. Some teachers are inspiring, imaginative, and skilled storytellers who take their students on journeys through the past, bringing history to life through the magic of story. Sometimes these types of history teachers are historical fiction writers. I know one of the reasons I became interested in history as a child was because of Judith Kerr’s novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Some history teachers plan and teach unique, rich, and detailed historical enquiries where students ask questions of the past and discover hidden and forgotten histories that are left out of textbooks and curriculums. My background is in historical enquiry; I think students should be discovering things about the past and should have agency in the questions they ask and the conclusions they draw. Crafting History extends the concept of enquiry so that students not only have agency in the questions they ask of the past but the forms (paintings, sketches, collage etc.) they produce in response to these questions. Crafting History, however, is still teacher led with sessions that are carefully planned and curated. Crafting History is therefore a mixture of historical enquiry and storytelling that results in creative outputs.

What are these creative outputs? What relationship do they have to the past? To craft is to make something. Crafting History sessions are about learning about the past and producing a creative form (e.g., a painting). This creative form is related to both the process of learning about the past and the past itself, like the Woodbridge Project. Rather than being an outcome that can be judged as ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ (like an essay or an exam), a creative output is a student’s own version of the past. Crafting History as a pedagogical practice emerged from my doctoral research that explored the ways historical significance emerged in history classrooms in schools. It is grounded by a specific philosophy and rigorous theory and concepts (you can find out more here). These philosophical ideas are not a focus during student sessions, but they are an important foundation for Crafting History which is both research and practitioner led. Crafting History is imagining a different way of teaching history that centres creativity and student agency.

Alongside arts-and-crafts sessions, Crafting History offers bespoke exam-focused history tutoring for GCSE and A-level students. As a teacher, I am a realist about exams and their place in the UK’s education system. Love them or hate them, they are currently an integral part of the model and important stepping-stones. I always say to my students, even if you are not enjoying the exam preparation process, think about the next step, be that sixth form college, university or the wider working world. Success in exams is about learning how to master a certain form: the art of historical writing in exam conditions. Crafting History’s bespoke history tutoring is informed by my experience as a classroom history teacher, online history tutor and history education specialist. These sessions are planned around exam board specifications and focus on content knowledge, knowledge retention, revision resources, exam skills and essay writing to give students the best chance for success.

Finally, the Crafting History website has details of my academic career including recent publications and projects.

Please get in touch if you are intrested in finding out more about Crafting History, either to connect about the academic research behind Crafting History or enquire about tutoring. You can email Katy (info@craftinghistory.co.uk) or fill out the Request a Session form.