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
- 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
- Scheme of Work: Grace O'Malley
Change and continuity
- Coherence in primary history: How can we get children to see that their history links up?
- How did a volcano affect life in the Bronze Age?
- Film: What's the wisdom on... Change and continuity (Primary)
- Migration to Britain through time
- Making the most of a census
- The Elizabeth cake
Causation
- 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
- Ancient Sumer
Significance
- The Great Exhibition of 1851: teaching a significant event at Key Stage 1
- Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
- Significance and interpretation in primary history
- Film: What's the wisdom on... Historical Significance (Primary)
- Local significant individuals
- Making the most of a census
Chronological Understanding
- Coherence in primary history: How can we get children to see that their history links up?
- Whatever did the Greeks do for us?
- Film: How has warfare changed over time?
- Teaching Ancient Egypt: developing subject knowledge
- Back to basics: How might we organise historical knowledge?
- Ancient Sumer: the cradle of civilisation
Inclusion
- Education White Paper and SEND Review 2022
- Film: Exploring representations and attitudes to disability across history
- Exploring empire, artefacts and local history
- Re-evaluating the role of statues
- Migration to Britain through time
- Primary History Summer Resource 2019: Diversity
Using Sources
- Exploring the past through active enquiry
- The Great Exhibition of 1851: teaching a significant event at Key Stage 1
- Think like an archaeologist!
- Back to basics: using maps in primary history
- What’s in a road? Local history at Early Years and Key Stage 1
- How museum collections make ancient Egypt, and the people who lived there, real
Similarity & difference
- 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
- Developing early history skills and understanding through the EYFS
- Teaching crime and punishment as a post-1066 theme
Diversity
- Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
- 50th anniversary of the UK’s first official Pride march: 1 July 2022
- Promoting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage in your primary history curriculum
- Film: Exploring representations and attitudes to disability across history
- West Indian Soldier: Learning resources from the National Army Museum
- Walter Tull: Sport, War and Challenging Adversity
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 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
- Migration to Britain through time
- Teaching sensitive subjects: slavery and Britain’s role in the trade
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