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
- The Vikings: ruthless killers or peaceful settlers?
- Having fun through time
- The gall nuts and lapis trail
- Overground, underground and across the sea
- Who Built This City? Using archives and museums to trace changes in our local area
- Creative ways to develop Enquiry skills for KS1 and KS2
Interpretations
- To boldly go: exploring the explorers
- What confuses primary pupils in history? Part 2
- What can you tell about the Maya... ?
- The Vikings: ruthless killers or peaceful settlers?
- A trail of garnet and gold: Sri Lanka to Anglo-Saxon England
- Anglo-Saxon Women
Change and continuity
- Overground, underground and across the sea
- Coherence in primary history
- The past through toys and games
- So was everyone an ancient Egyptian?
- Using original sources
- Teaching history and geography together in a meaningful way
Causation
- To boldly go: exploring the explorers
- Ancient Sumer
- Assessment and Progression without levels
- Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the kingdom of England
- The Maya: a 4,000-year-old civilisation in the Americas
- Investigating the Indus Valley (2600-1900 B.C.)
Significance
- A trail of garnet and gold: Sri Lanka to Anglo-Saxon England
- One of my favourite history places
- Mummified cat embalmed in linen cloth
- Anglo-Saxon Women
- What made Cleopatra so special?
- The Stone Age conundrum
Chronological Understanding
- Resources for courses: ideas for your history curriculum
- Trade and pilgrimage in the Abbasid Caliphate
- Elizabethan times: Just banquets and fun?
- The potty timeline: an effective way of using timelines
- To boldly go: exploring the explorers
- Why stop at the Tudors?
Inclusion
- Three first-class ladies – teaching significant individuals in Key Stage 1
- Ideas for assemblies: LGBT History Month
- Muslim soldiers in World War I
- World War I: widening relevance in the modern world
- Where were the women in Anglo-Saxon England?
- Teaching diversity in the Primary History Curriculum
Using Sources
- How can old advertisements be used in the primary classroom?
- ‘So why did they go into hiding?’ Anne Frank in her historical and social context
- Using the back cover: The moustache cup
- For whose God, King and country? Seeing the First World War through South Asian eyes
- Dora Thewlis: Mill girl activist
- What can you do with an old postcard?
Similarity & difference
- How can old advertisements be used in the primary classroom?
- Why stop at the Tudors?
- Food – a theme for learning about the past
- Overground, underground and across the sea
- So was everyone an ancient Egyptian?
- Our Iron Age challenge
Diversity
- Three first-class ladies – teaching significant individuals in Key Stage 1
- Ideas for assemblies: LGBT History Month
- For whose God, King and country? Seeing the First World War through South Asian eyes
- World War I: widening relevance in the modern world
- Women’s History Month: Female Voices
- Is There a Place for The Holocaust in the Primary Curriculum?
Big Picture
- The Blitz: All we need to know about World War II?
- Trade and pilgrimage in the Abbasid Caliphate
- Siege coins of the English Civil War
- Having fun through time
- Coherence in primary history
- Ideas for Assemblies: Refugee stories
Controversial issues
- Writing books for young children about the First World War
- Is There a Place for The Holocaust in the Primary Curriculum?
- Ideas for Assemblies: Refugee stories
- Teaching the Holocaust in Primary School
- The Kindertransports: teaching challenging history at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3
- Primary history and British values