History Skills Workshops

Information for teachers

Online Workshop

The University of Oxford's Faculty of History offers free online History Skills Workshops to state secondary school, sixth form and FE college pupils in years 12 & 13 from across the UK.

Each workshop has four aims:

  • To inspire curiosity about the past and enthusiasm for studying history.
  • To work with teachers to enrich the history curriculum.
  • To help students to develop the analytical, critical, and imaginative skills that Russell Group universities look for in applicants for humanities degrees.
  • To inform and encourage students to consider applying to read history at university, including at the University of Oxford.

History skills workshops last about an hour. They are designed to develop the academic skills of students in Years 12 & 13. All history skills workshops are interactive. 

We welcome requests for online workshops, which will normally be delivered via Microsoft Teams. All workshops are free to state schools in the UK. To enquire about booking a workshop for your school please get in touch - outreach@history.ox.ac.uk

Teacher feedback

It was engaging, lively, and thought-provoking. The students were buzzing afterwards.

James Colenutt, Teacher of History and Politics, St Marylebone CE School. Thinking Big: concepts & historiography workshop.

1. History Research Skills 

This workshop aims to introduce students to the skills that they will need to undertake successful independent research. Our Graduate Outreach Tutors (all of whom are currently working on in-depth and specialist historical research projects) will discuss and engage students with the research process from choosing a question to writing up. 

2. Thinking Big: concepts and historiography

This workshop is designed to encourage students to engage critically with historiography and different concepts. Students will explore why engaging with how we write history is an essential and exciting part of being a historian and discuss what we mean by conceptual clarity. 

3. Primary Sources

In this workshop we explore the different kinds of sources that Historians use in their research. Students will then have the chance to put their analysis skills into practice with a variety of sources currently being used by our Graduate Outreach Tutors in their research.

4. An Introduction to History of Art: Visual Analysis

The aim of this workshop is to provide a general introduction to studying History of Art at university. We will go through some of the discipline’s key concepts and methodologies and practice one of the key skills of art history - visual analysis.

5. Admissions: the HAT

This workshop aims to demystify the Oxford admissions process and build student’s confidence and ability to analyse unseen primary sources as we work through a past History Aptitude Test (HAT) paper. 

Further information

The workshops develop the skills that are tested by Oxford University’s undergraduate admissions process, including the History Aptitude Test (HAT) and admissions interviews. To find out more about applying to study history at Oxford, see: https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate-admissions

Workshops are taught by our team of Graduate Outreach Tutors (historians who are researching DPhil's at Oxford and who have been trained to work with schools.) Tutors are able to put you in touch with admissions co-ordinators at Oxford who can provide further individual guidance to potential Oxford applicants.

For state secondary schools across the UK. Funded by the University of Oxford.

The History Faculty’s outreach programme seeks to challenge educational inequalities across the UK.

To find out more, email outreach@history.ox.ac.uk.

For information about other Oxford University outreach activities, including UNIQ summer schools, Oxplore digital learning resources, and teacher conferences, see: ox.ac.uk/access.