Curriculum Issues
The history curriculum is riddled with issues to consider, from the content, to concepts and processes related to history, to the whole school issues that need to be considered as they relate to the history curriculum. In this section you will find articles, resources and guidance helpfully broken down into the different issues and areas that affect the planning and delivery of history in schools.
Planning
- Back to basics: How might we organise historical knowledge?
- Back to basics: what does a good history lesson look like?
- Film: Picturing the past (and the future)
- Extending the curriculum: why should we consider ‘value added’?
- Epistemic insights: bringing subject disciplines together
- The Elizabeth cake
Interpretations
- What is so important about interpretations?
- Significance and interpretation in primary history
- Re-evaluating the role of statues
- Storytelling the past
- Film: What's the wisdom on... Historical Interpretations (Primary)
- Using different sources to bring a topic to life: The Rebecca Riots
Change and continuity
- Developing disciplinary knowledge: how and why castles and forts developed
- Little coins, big histories
- Teaching ‘changes within living memory’: making the most of your school
- Using picture books to explore ideas around history with very young children
- Teaching about the German Occupation of Jersey through the Occupation Tapestry
- Coherence in primary history: How can we get children to see that their history links up?
Causation
- Developing disciplinary knowledge: how and why castles and forts developed
- Film: What's the wisdom on... Causation
- The Elizabeth cake
- Getting to grips with concepts in primary history
- The Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings: push, pull, cause and consequence
- To boldly go: exploring the explorers
Significance
- Little coins, big histories
- Exploring the history of space
- Making the most of a visit to the Museum of London Docklands
- Significance
- Significant anniversaries: the infamous Beeching Report 1963
- Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
Chronological Understanding
- Little coins, big histories
- Making the most of a visit to the Museum of London Docklands
- Teaching Robin Hood at Key Stage 1
- Timelines in teaching history
- Coherence in primary history: How can we get children to see that their history links up?
- Whatever did the Greeks do for us?
Inclusion
- History and SEND: free taster films
- Film series: History and SEND
- Pull-out posters: Primary History 95
- Exploring the Great Fire of London and Deaf history
- Teaching black British history through local archives
- Education White Paper and SEND Review 2022
Using Sources
- Using inventories in Key Stage 2 history
- What’s important about...? Sources and evidence
- Using some more unusual sources in the primary classroom
- Significant anniversaries: the infamous Beeching Report 1963
- What’s in your pocket, Peg?
- Using oral history in the classroom
Similarity & difference
- Little coins, big histories
- The wheels (and horses…) on the bus
- Exploring the past through active enquiry
- Film: What's the wisdom on... Similarity and Difference (Primary)
- Pandemics in history: similarity and difference
- Migration to Britain through time
Diversity
- Why are there so many ‘mummies’ in Western museums?
- Significant anniversaries: The Bristol Bus Boycott, 1963
- Teaching black British history through local archives
- Diversity in Primary History
- Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
- Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
Big Picture
- Changes in an aspect of social history from 1945 to 2000: youth culture
- Exploring the spices of the east: how curry got to our table
- Scheme of work: Journeys - the story of migration to Britain
- Epistemic insights: bringing subject disciplines together
- ‘Miss, did the Romans build pyramids?’
- The Blitz: All we need to know about World War II?
Controversial issues
- Teaching the British Empire in primary history
- Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
- Teaching about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and events happening there
- Exploring empire, artefacts and local history
- One of my favourite history places: the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum
- History in the news: George Floyd protest in Bristol – Colston statue toppled
Literacy
- Storytelling the past
- Primary History summer resource 2020: Historical Fiction
- Historical fiction: it’s all made up, isn’t it?
- Embedding progress in historical vocabulary teaching
- Texts for the Classroom: Ma’at’s Feather
- Using Horrible History to develop primary literacy and history