Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. If you are a little nervous of using drama in your history lessons, here is a safe way to start but look out for the many opportunities that arise for developing empathy, personal opinion, understanding of...

Hugh Turner illuminates how drama can be used to teach medieval history...

The literacy strategy is here to stay and has profound implications for the teaching of history in primary schools. Primary history practitioners realise, of course, that the literacy strategy presents challenges as well as opportunities. On the one hand, a more explicit emphasis upon the ‘basic’ skill of literacy means...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated. If you stop and look around you a curious mind begins to ask questions. This is one reason why the primary curriculum should introduce pupils to learning that draws from a broad range of subject...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. It is now some seventeen years since the publication of our original pamphlet by the Historical Association [HA] as part of the Teaching of History Series (Wilson and Woodhouse, 1990). This article offers a personal review...

Drama plays a crucial role in bringing the past to life. For children it enables them to develop their understanding of motivation, behaviour and historical contexts within an essential chronological framework. Primary History 48 , History, Drama and the Classroom, explores the scope and nature of Drama for teaching history....

Please note: this piece was written before Sir Mo Farah’s 2022 disclosure that he was trafficked to the UK as a child, so some of its content is no longer accurate. An assembly could focus on the achievements of their lives, experiences as child refugees and migrants, and how they overcame...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. The Science Museum in South Kensington, London is accessible through its website as well as through visiting the building itself and this article considers how history teachers can gain from using the collection and resources...

Introduction A great deal has been written recently defining what is meant by creativity in primary education. And much has been written urging us to ‘teach creatively'. Yet there had been no exploration of what teaching creatively means in terms of teaching history until a group of colleagues and I...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. From the late 1960s until 1989 history was almost universally taught in primary schools as an element in integrated crosscurricular programmes, normally social studies or humanities. The 1989/1990 National Curriculum: History radically changed this. It introduced...

A Campaign Project For Primary Schools Focusing On The Women Chain Makers Strike Of 1910.  The Historical Association was left a legacy by Joan Lewin which became the Joan Lewin Education Bursary Fund. Each year, applicants apply for grants for education projects surrounding aspects of teaching and learning, resources, or...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. John Fines, Raymond Verrier and I frequently taught as a team trying to discover where drama work and history meet. We were interested in helping children get a grasp of past events which have influenced their...

What do we mean by creativity?In the last few years there has been an emphasis on the ‘creative curriculum', ‘creativity' and ‘creative teaching and learning', but there has not always been a shared understanding of what this means. This article uses the definition from ‘Creativity - find it, promote it'...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Section 1: Introduction Music is a powerful, emotive subject to enrich Historical, Geographical and Social Understanding. The Historical Association has a long and proud tradition of working closely with the Schools Music Association. In 2005, to...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. In a primary school in Devon, there is a teacher who sings to his class every day: traditional songs; love songs; lyrical ballads; sea shanties; tales of mystery and suspense; songs of ritual and ceremony, hunting songs,...

This was a half-term cross-curricular topic with a mixed Year 1/2 class. It focused on forces in science, storytelling in English, and objects and pictures in history. The children in the class had a wide range of abilities, with a large number having very poor expressive language. Therefore many of...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Editor's note The Place, Time and Society 8-13 Project was established in 1971 ‘to explore the problems of the part of the curriculum for children aged 8-13 which is related to the subject-areas of history, geography and...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. ‘Ok children, time for history.' Distant moans from the back of the class. Would I be surprised by this reaction? No, not if the teacher was diligently following the QCA guidelines for teaching history. Yes, if...

This unit focuses on the Georgian period across the mid to late 18th century. It is during this period that Britain (rather than England) begins to consolidate the gains made by Tudor and Stuart explorers and traders. The seeds of the British Empire of the Victorian period are planted at this...

Since the nineteenth century there has been a rich heritage of outdoor learning pedagogy in Europe, and today in Scandinavia the open air culture (frulitsliv) permeates Early Years education. In 1993 Bridgewater College nursery nurses returned from a visit to Denmark enthused by the outdoor educational settings and started their own ‘Forest School'. From 1995 the college...