Events which encapsulate family, community, national and global history provide rich opportunities for engaging children. Some of these draw on positive memories associated with past events: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, how people responded to the first flight to the moon, the Millennium celebrations. Yet it is perhaps gruelling...

The new (2014) Primary History National Curriculum is finally upon us. The first thing you might notice is that the level descriptions have gone. These were first introduced in 1995 and became the mainstay for assessing pupil progression and attainment in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 across schools in...

Please note: this article was written before the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and references may no longer be relevant. During the Early Years and Foundation Stage children should listen to stories, ask how and why and talk about the past (DfE 2012). Young children are comfortable with stories. Through...

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...

Introduction Systematic, sustained provision of in-service courses has virtually disappeared. Increasingly, teachers' main source of professional development is the Internet. There is, however, a huge difference between reading about new approaches and skills and transforming that information, that understanding, into new ways of thinking, planning and teaching. This is where...

Introduction: The White Paper The recent Schools' White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, emphasises ‘that the most important factor in determining how well children do is the quality of teachers and teaching' (DfE, 2010:9). White Paper recommendations include: 1. raising the quality of new entrants to the teaching profession; 2....

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated. The core values which are supposed to underpin the curriculum are generally taught through discrete personal, social and health education lessons and developed through classroom ethos. Yet history has at its heart the ways...

The report look at approaches that enable teachers to tackle these issues in ordinary lessons through rigorous and engaging teaching while at the same time challenging discrimination and prejudice.

[Editorial note: Sir Cyril Taylor provides an overview of the challenge for the maintained sector that the education of Gifted and Talented pupils presents. In relation to the primary phase reliable data is not available: but there is no evidence that G&T provision is any better for 3-11 year olds...

I gave half an ear recently to a radio debate on the nature of scientific genius. A number of examples were given of infants doing calculus and toddlers designing suspension bridges, but the most convincing statement came from a panellist who defined the phenomenon as ‘the passion to know’. The...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. This article is a tribute to the 20th century’s most inspirational history teacher, John Fines. He embodied the principles of ‘doing history’ in his teaching and in the Nuffield Primary History Project that he directed....

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. With primary history contributing to writing, some research by Sandra Dunsmuir and Peter Blatchford into pupils aged 4-7 has relevance to history teaching. The findings were published in the "British Journal of Educational Psychology", edition...