Classroom Resources

These resources can take many forms but will be aimed at helping younger children explore historical concepts through their senses and developing their language and communication. For example, artefacts, visual images of various kinds, stories and people themselves all help younger children to explore ideas and work out problems for themselves and with support from informed adults.

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  • 'Doing Local History' through maps and drama

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Editorial note: John Fines produced two case studies of Local History for the Nuffield Primary History Project. One on them is published here for the first time.

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  • A History of the World: 100 objects that tell a story

    Article

    ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects' was the most creative, imaginative and dynamic development in primary History Education for thirty years. It ties in perfectly with and supports the government's draft NC for History...

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  • A Local History Toolkit

    Article

    IntroductionIn this short paper you will discover some of the tools for ‘doing' local history. They are based on where I live: you can get similar types of sources from where you live, work or teach. Your main source will be a local library or record office, but there is...

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  • A creative Egyptian project

    Article

    Ideally when teaching history, teachers will look to deliver projects that will engage and motivate, hopefully making the hard work of being creative stimulating and rewarding, based upon questioning, enquiry, investigation of sources and reaching conclusions grounded in the evidence.Ancient Egypt is one of those history topics which, because it...

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  • A view from the KS1 classroom - investigating an artefact

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. In the autumn of 2009 I saw some of the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and stood in awe at the skills of the craftsmen. Reminded so vividly of the...

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  • An Olympic Great? Dorando Pietri

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. The Italian confectioner Dorando Pietri is one of the most famous figures from the 1908 Olympics - famous for not winning. His story raises issues of sportsmanship suitable for class discussion. There are detailed accounts readily...

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  • Archaeology and the Early Years: The Noah's Ark Experience

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. The authors of this article first worked together on a number of small scale excavations while Bev was still a primary school teacher in the Bradford area. When Bev changed roles to train...

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  • Artefacts and art facts: images of Sir Francis Drake

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. Editorial note: This article reveals the power of the Internet in helping us all, adults and children, to bring portraits like Drake's to life. So, as you read, follow the links.

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  • Artefacts handling at Brunel's SS Great Britain

    Article

    Editorial note: This article introduces teachers to ss Great Britain as an artefactual teaching resource. It links closely to Teachers TV programmes, see page 30, and should be read in conjunction with them.

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  • Bring on the iPad revolution

    Article

    The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic games celebrated change whilst demonstrating the challenges revolutions have on the world. From green pastures to belching chimneystacks, from post-war Britain to the World Wide Internet and text messaging, the way society interacts is changing at an incomprehensible rate. The same could be...

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  • Case Study: Historical information and the local community

    Article

    The ICT revolution A paper register, a pink-lined A4 mark book and a written school log book are surely historical artefacts? The transition from paper to digital technology continues, changing the world of the classroom teacher whose working life like mine, began in the print age when digital-based education was...

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  • Case Study: Hit the net!

    Article

    Primary History's editorial team set me the challenge of seeing how useful ICT would be in my teaching. The challenge was timely, as I recently inherited a Year Six History class with its unit of work "Life in Britain since the 1930s". Having taught predominantly KS1, this invoked both feelings of...

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  • Celebrate your sporting heritage

    Article

    National Sporting Heritage Day takes place on 30 September every year. It aims to support schools and other community organisations to engage withtheir local sporting heritage, explore the heritage on their doorstep, celebrate and share the information that they find and inspire children and young people to find out more....

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  • Chronology through ICT

    Article

    Introduction: Research into chronological understanding Chronological understanding is both one of history's most important disciplinary organising concepts (Lee and Shemilt: 2004) required for developing a full understanding of history, and certainly one of the most researched, though often with a broader remit that just historical understanding. It is possible to sympathise...

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  • Chronology: Developing a coherent knowledge

    Article

    Chronology: Developing a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain's past and of the wider world First, this article considers the reasons why it is essential for children to develop a chronological framework. Next it considers ways in which this framework is necessary for the development of the time concepts set...

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  • Constructivist chronology and Horrible Histories

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. I chose Horrible Histories for this exploration of children's understanding of chronology because I thought it would be fun - and I approve of the Horrible Histories. They use sources, question sources, provide alternative interpretations and...

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  • Doing History with Objects

    Article

    IntroductionI was talking about ‘Doing History' with historical artefacts and objects with a young teacher when she closed the discussion with the statement ‘It's alright for you, you're old, your house is full of old things - how do I get them?' Alas - I had to agree with her,...

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  • English Heritage's Heritage Explorer

    Article

    Diogenes - Waving not drowning: English Heritage's Heritage Explorer [THINK BUBBLE, has burst, r.i.p... Diogenes, a curmudgeonly Ancient Greek cynic, has taken its place. The original Grumpy Old Man Diogenes typically looks back to a mythical golden age] Introduction Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember a time when primary school...

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  • Extending Primary Children's thinking through artefacts

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. A research project was carried out with Maltese primary school children at San Andrea Infant and Middle school to see if learning strategies could accelerate pupils' cognitive development. The research involved a range of historical sources:...

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  • From Champion to Hero: Engaging Pupils in a study of significant Olympians

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Allocated the task of researching and presenting ideas for teaching about significant Olympians, I thought: ‘Brilliant, this is the easy one'. How wrong can one be! I expected to be able to access a plethora of...

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