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
- Planning for progression and sequencing in primary history
- 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
Interpretations
- Task design for historical thinking
- Battersea: here for every dog and cat – 165 years and still going strong
- What is so important about interpretations?
- Significance and interpretation in primary history
- Re-evaluating the role of statues
- Storytelling the past
Change and continuity
- Task design for historical thinking
- Battersea: here for every dog and cat – 165 years and still going strong
- When your parents were young…
- Creating drawings and environmental narratives for developing historical thinking
- The end of the Cold War with a personal perspective
- Writing in Primary History edition 1 and 100: has there been a dramatic shift?
Causation
- An approach to teaching the British Civil Wars in the primary classroom
- 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
Significance
- Task design for historical thinking
- She sells seashells by the seashore: teaching Mary Anning at Key Stage 1
- Battersea: here for every dog and cat – 165 years and still going strong
- An approach to teaching the British Civil Wars in the primary classroom
- The Brontë sisters: teaching local history through a focus on one remarkable family
- Little coins, big histories
Chronological Understanding
- Battersea: here for every dog and cat – 165 years and still going strong
- Planning a post-1066 thematic study
- When your parents were young…
- The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR)
- Using children’s illustrators as a focus for learning about ‘Past and Present’ in EYFS
- Little coins, big histories
Inclusion
- History and SEND: free taster films
- Film series: History and SEND
- Disability in primary history teaching
- Pull-out posters: Primary History 95
- Exploring the Great Fire of London and Deaf history
- Teaching black British history through local archives
Using Sources
- Identifying sources to plan a local study
- An approach to teaching the British Civil Wars in the primary classroom
- Learning history through the lens of artefacts
- History through children’s voices
- Four objects in search of a story: why artefacts matter in history
- Active learners: classroom strategies for enhancing history teaching
Similarity & difference
- Task design for historical thinking
- History through children’s voices
- Little coins, big histories
- Who is in charge?
- Exploring the many aspects of neolithic Britain
- Similarity and difference with a tasty twist
Diversity
- Who were the Greeks and how diverse was their society?
- ‘Nothing was easy’: Viewing war, empire and racism through the eyes of a local Windrush migrant
- Different ways of teaching local history through significant individuals
- Disability in primary history teaching
- Unlocking the treasures of early Islam
- Why are there so many ‘mummies’ in Western museums?
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