Here, in this series of films, the Year 2 teacher, Paula Granger, discusses the challenges they faced, what decisions they made, what worked well and what didn't quite work the way they intended, and how they coped. She also discusses the changes they decided to make for this year in...

Please note: this article was written before the the 2014 National Curriculum and some content is now outdated. All teachers working within the foundation stage will, at some time, be using nursery rhymes in their classrooms. Their importance to early language development has long been acknowledged, particularly the way in which they contribute to...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. For more current and recent articles see Using stories to support history in the EYFS and Time for a story. In this article we argue that children in the Foundation Stage should be introduced to history as historical...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. History is a subject whose meaning is properly appreciated only in our maturity. In their old age we find those we consider wisest turning to Gibbon, Burckhardt, and Thucydides. The richness and endlessly elaborated meaning of...

Introduction This year has been an incredibly rich time for young children to gain an understanding of their place in history and also that history is something they are part of and can influence. The use of technology to support this learning has been invaluable. ICT has had a huge impact...

Developments in information technology continue at an extraordinary pace. Many young children will have little or no idea of what it was like to live in a world without mobile phones, computers and the Internet. Most children will regularly make use of devices such as smart phones, digital cameras and...

Teachers and schools should surely be forgiven for quickly turning to the pages containing the ‘subject content' - within the new 2014 history curriculum - and finding out ‘what' they should be teaching. This is especially true for Key Stage 2 where children must now learn British history from the...

Using ‘Development Matters' to plan learning for history in the Foundation stage You won't find the term history in the Early Years curriculum framework at all. That being so, it can be difficult to know how best to support our Nursery and Reception colleagues when developing historical understanding within the...

In the children’s picture book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Wilfrid is a small boy who meets Miss Nancy, an old lady who has lost her memory. Wilfrid wants to help, and so he carefully fills a basket with special objects and takes them to her. He places a medal in...

Stories can be used as starting points for planning topics. Activities suggested below relate to ‘Understanding the world’ including Early Learning Goal 13 – People and communities:  Children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know about similarities and...

Imagine a place where your pupils become detectives working on mysteries from the past such as the tale of Thomas Sargeant, a 15-year-old factory worker who died in a chemical works in 1898. Your local archive is bursting with stories about real people like this which can give children an...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Six-year-old Rebecca asked me this question when I visited her classroom to share a book which I had written with her and her classmates. It seemed to me at the time that Rebecca was identifying a...