ABSTRACT
John Fines (1994) claimed that evidence is the ‘basis of the discipline’ of history. While there is little disputing this for academic history, it is only in the past 40 years that source material has come to be used more commonly in schools; in the UK, for example, it was given a prominent position in the GCSE examination for 16 year olds (from 1986) and the National Curriculum (from 1990). Now the use of a range of source material is widespread in history classrooms across the secondary age range. Yet evidential thinking does not necessarily come easily to many pupils. The first extract in this chapter sets out a justification for the place of evidential work in school history; the second suggests some approaches that might help overcome typical misconceptions pupils have when using evidence; the third explores the methods students use when they approach documentary sources.
