Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. The employment of the visual image is a fascinating and exciting way to enable children to gain a glimpse into the past. It is problematic, however, in that such imagery is often an...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. Images allow us to step back in time and ask important historical questions such as ‘Were the Victorians just like us?' Growing digitisation and the spread of the internet allow teachers and learners...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. Pictures are an important source of evidence for children to use to find out about the past. They have an immediate impact and children of all ages and abilities find that they have...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. What questions does the portrait raise in your mind? What messages does the artist intend to convey? How does the artist convey those messages to the intended audience? What might have been the circumstances under which the...

British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, we aim to support academic and personal users around the...

The household returns and ancillary records for the censuses of Ireland of 1901 and 1911, which are in the custody of the National Archives of Ireland, represent an extremely valuable part of the Irish national heritage. Click here to go to the site: National Archives of Ireland

Give your pupils an interesting old photograph and a magnifying glass and let them be history detectives investigating the past. Use local photographs of places they are familiar with and they will be instantly hooked. Add some more complex sources and give them an insight into the way that 'real'...

Alan Hodkinson answers questions about using photographs as sources of evidence.

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Pat Hoodless answers questions about history and written sources.

Mary Mills answers questions about accessing archive sources. Please note: this article dates from 2003 and some of the sources and services referenced may no longer be available.

Anna Disney and Peter Hammond answer questions about historical maps.

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Working on written sources is fundamental to historical learning. A document, inscription or sign brings children directly into contact with the past in much the same way as an artefact. It is real and conveys...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This article focuses on extracts from the mid nineteenth and provides information on the wages and living standards of agricultural labourers. In the article Sue Berry suggests numerous ways in which these extracts can be used in lessons at Key Stage 1...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. There is a huge range of moving image material that provides, or purports to provide, direct documentary coverage of many historical events over the last 105 years. You can access much that is suitable for primary children from television and the video...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Jill Grey lived in Hitchin and over a period of 25 years, collected over 35,000 items. A11 of the material relates to the history of education and social history of childhood. I am still in the process of cataloguing the collection and...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Outbreaks of the plague were common in the 16th century and the north of England was badly affected in the 1590s. It is believed that the plague arrived in Cumberland from Newcastle about Michaelmas 1597 and continued for over a year. The...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Logbooks can be described as the diary of the headmaster. The contents can vary in interest depending on how diligent the headmaster was at recording events. Some merely record the delivery of coals, the attendance at the school or the visitors to...