I was delighted to be asked by the Cork HTA to deliver an online CPD session designed to help new and returning Leaving Cert History teachers approach the “Special Topic” or RSR (Research Study Report) with their students.

Below are some of the supporting documents and handouts that I use selectively with students. I include them as pdfs and MS Word Docs so that you can edit them easily for your own use – every class is different, after all, and I find myself tinkering with this material year-on-year.

Cork HTA – LC Hist RSR CPD PowerPoint Presentation

MS Word of Gridding your Extended Essay Blank

PDF of Gridding your Extended Essay Blank

MS Word Doc of RSR Research Skills and Footnotes

PDF of RSR Research Skills and Footnotes

Other useful links include the PDST documents that were provided in 2013 (I think, but possibly earlier). I wouldn’t use all of it, but the checklist on the final page is dead handy. You can find that page here (I suggest downloading those documents straight away, because sometimes those links go dead inexplicably). *The sample booklet on that page is in the old format, so don’t give that one to students!!!

Of course, Patrick Hickey’s YouTube videos are always accessible for students, though I’m not sure if the video on the Evaluation of Sources has been updated to take into account the expanded space (2-pages) that students now have for that process.

For new teachers, it’s probably also worth digging into the 2017 SEC Chief Examiner’s Report for History. It’s a little old now, but virtually all of what it says is still relevant.

And as I’m sure most teachers are aware, there are other useful RSR resources on the Cork HTA website…!

I hope that these bits and piece will be of use to some people, in what I think is one of the most important written tasks that any LC student completes.

JD – 10/10/2022