Dr John McKerrow · Historian, examiner, teacherNine years at university. Three history degrees. A quarter-century in the classroom.
Nine years at university, three history degrees, and a career spent making the past vivid, accurate and exam-ready.
I have taught history in the United Kingdom since 2008. After completing my PhD I took a short post at St Leonards School, then spent five years at Westcliff High School for Boys, where I was promoted to second in the history department and Head of Year 9. Since 2014 I have been Head of History at West Buckland School in the West Country.
I completed my PhD at McMaster University in 2008. My specialty then was military history, and I was fortunate to have my dissertation published as a book in 2013 — The American Occupation of Australia, 1941–45: A Marriage of Necessity. At master's level I was awarded the Ezio Cappadocia Graduate Prize for European History.
My teaching focuses on modern European history — the French and Russian Revolutions, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, the Cold War and German unification — alongside the British Industrial Revolution and modern China.
The American Occupation of Australia, 1941–45
A Marriage of Necessity
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013 · 254 pages · ISBN 9781443847278
- 2000Begins teaching history.
- 2008PhD, McMaster University. Begins teaching in the United Kingdom — St Leonards, then Westcliff High School for Boys.
- 2010Becomes an A-Level and IGCSE History examiner for Pearson Edexcel, until 2022.
- 2013The American Occupation of Australia, 1941–45 published.
- 2014Head of History, West Buckland School.
- 2025Becomes an examiner for an international exam board.
When I began teaching, I was struck by how much of what passes for history is simply wrong — rushed textbooks, tired teaching, and too often ideology dressed up as fact. I founded McKerrow History to do something about it.
My promise is a simple one. I will tell your child the truth about the past — as it really was — and I will teach them to write about it well enough to satisfy any examiner. I have spent nine years at university and a quarter-century in the classroom learning to do both, and I still find the work a privilege.
I take only a small number of private students each year, because I teach every one of them myself. If your son or daughter is willing to read, to argue, and to think for themselves, I should be glad to consider them.
What I believe about history
History as it really was
I follow the Rankean school — to write history wie es eigentlich gewesen, as things really were. Historians should be as neutral as humanly possible, pursuing truth over ideology.
Against bland teaching
Students deserve more than sterile textbooks and teachers who haven't read since university. I bring the drama, the debate and the evidence back into the room.
An examiner's eye
Knowing the history is only half the battle. I teach precisely what examiners reward — because I have marked the papers myself: A-Level and IGCSE History for Pearson Edexcel from 2010 to 2022, and for an international exam board today.
