The Author of this Site

The History on the Net Group is owned, produced and maintained by Heather Wheeler an historian and former history and special needs teacher.

A Brief Biography

I left school in 1974 with few qualifications and no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Twenty years later with a variety of jobs behind me, I decided that I wanted to teach. However, for a single parent without a degree this seemed an impossibility.

I was not put off and worked as a childminder in my own home studying with the Open University for a degree in European Humanities in my spare time.

When my youngest son started school I began working as a Learning Support Assistant in a Primary School. I soon found that I had a particular aptitude for working with pupils with special needs, especially those with challenging behaviour. In 1999, to further my development of techniques for dealing with challenging behaviour, I left the Primary School to work in a Pupil Referral Unit.

In December 1999 I finally graduated and began my PGCE in History in September 2000. The History on the Net website was established in November 2000 to provide easily accessible resources for my teaching practice. I took up my first teaching post in September 2001 as Learning Support Unit Manager at Filsham Valley Secondary School spending much of my time with pupils with behavioural problems and established a second website Additional Needs Net (www.additionalneeds.net) In June 2003 I decided to take a side-step and from September 2003 taught Humanities and History full time at Filsham Valley School and was appointed Head of History iIn March 2004.

The growth and demands of the site together with the demands of my teaching post became impossible to manage during the Autumn term of 2004. Not wanting to give up the site, I decided to take some time out from teaching to further develop the site. Seven years on and the site has become a thriving business managed by myself with a team of part-time staff.

Natural History on the Net

Natural History on the Net began life in March 2007 because we were continually receiving requests from our History on the Net visitors for information on geography and science subjects.

We began adding information and had intended to employ a member of staff dedicated to writing material for this site. However, when the recession hit in 2008 we had to make cuts and work on this site was scaled back. Initially we had a shop attached to this site but in mid 2009 we took the decision to enlarge our History on the Net Shop, change its name to HON Resources Shop and bring all products into one shop.

Although the effects of the recession have resulted in less growth on this site than we would have liked, we are now, July 2011, in a position to be adding new pages to the site. We are hopeful that we will now be able to build the site into a comprehensive resource for natural history topics.

How the site used to look