Editorial note: Writing is an outcome of its preparatory phase. In reviewing over fifty case-studies of writing and history for this edition of Primary History, it became clear that oracy is central to pupil development of written language, ideas and the formulation, planning, creation, drafting and revision of writing. Introduction...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. History is a subject which of necessity makes extensive use of language in all its forms and so the links with literacy are many. Cooper (2000), Bage (1999), Hoodless (1998) and Nichol, in the Nuffield History...

Poetry is a major area for pupils creative and imaginative historical writing. Pupils writing historical poetry can draw upon a wide range of poetic modes, for example haikus, sonnets, blank verse. Poetry is an excellent vehicle for public presentation, with pupils reading their composition to their class members. To use...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. ‘Some primary schools are like the High Street in many of our towns. I can predict what I will see before I go through the door. What I want to see is something that gives me...

This year's free summer resource for primary members explores historical fiction and how we can use it in our teaching and learning. Historical fiction can be a potent tool for creating a ‘sense of period’, immersing us in the past through the power of narrative. When studying a particular historical period,...

Introduction: Interactive Whole Class - Teaching, Textbreaker & EXIT Demonstration and modelling relies upon pupils being able to read the text that is being modelled, including the most demanding document. Accordingly the Nuffield  Primary History Project developed a whole class interactive teaching strategy to support pupil reading of difficult and...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. Background The emphasis in pupil writing in the National Literacy Strategy is upon non-fiction genres (DfEE:1997; DfEE: 1998). Such genres are essential tools for life and are at the centre of an effective literacy programme (Wray...

Stone Age to Iron Age covers around 10,000 years, between the last Ice Age and the coming of the Romans. Such a long period is difficult for children to imagine, but putting the children into a living time-line across the classroom might help. In one sense not a lot happens...

This article will demonstrate how to engage children through storytelling and how it can be used to develop their critical understanding of the past. Why story? Despite their common derivation, the words ‘history’ and ‘story’ suggest very different kinds of knowledge, the former carrying overtones of detached understanding of the...

Editorial note: This paper has two sections: first, a background briefing about Ancient Egypt with a timeline and map that introduces the second section's three teaching activities on: building the Great Pyramid of Giza; Hatshepsut, Egypt's great woman pharaoh; and Akhenaten and his attempt to revolutionise Egyptian religion. ‘Hail to thee, O...

Alf Wilkinson discusses a book first published in 2008, and set in Ancient Egypt. Ma’at’s Feather is the story of Qen, a young boy growing up in ancient Egypt. He is part of a farming family, and we discover how their livelihood is totally dependent on the River Nile... 

Creative curricular planning With the National Curriculum under review, it seems that more schools are taking a creative approach to planning by delivering the curriculum through a focused theme or topic. This has allowed schools to take more ownership of the curriculum and has helped teachers become more innovative in their...

Anyone who has pretensions to being a film buff learns pretty early on the immortal lines of the jaundiced newspaperman from John Ford's 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance that when it comes to choosing between the truth and the legend……..I was reminded of this recently whilst preparing...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. Story is the crucial factor in children’s awareness of past times in their ‘mythic’ phase of mental development, see page 4. Everyone loves a story, stories ‘open out fresh fields, the illimitable beckoning of horizons to imagination…...

Stories are an important part of a young child’s way of making sense of their world. Hilary Cooper’s excellent article ‘Why Stories?’ explores some of the reasons why stories are important to young children and their growing ‘understanding of the world’. This article is going to explore some recommended stories...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Time, although an extremely complex, abstract concept, is one that begins to develop in children's minds as soon as they are born. Although it cannot be seen or touched and leaves no visible trace, very young...

When I started planning for my Key Stage 2 literacy lessons last year, I wanted to link them to my history topic, the Tudors, and I also needed them to cover a significant amount of non-fiction English objectives, having focused on fiction and poetry texts in the previous term. One...

Nursery rhymes are good sources of evidence about the past and their potential for developing children's understanding has been discussed in earlier editions of Primary History (Woodhouse: 2005, 2001; Cooper: 2005; Primary History : 2000) They may be used as starting points to provide information about past ways of life...

Please note: This article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated. Classic fiction provides useful sources of information for investigating the lives, beliefs and values of people in the past. In this article Ann Cowling describes activities undertaken with student teachers which may also serve as models...

Children develop their understanding of the past through a range of historical sources of evidence. Written sources may provide different types of information for children to work from. Records such as census returns or street directories provide information about families and tradespeople living in a particular communities and old maps...