Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Before the 1960s British Rail's spider-web network of railway lines reached every town and thousands of villages. Where you live would have been within a thirty minute journey from a station; scroll down to look at...

Your local museum is often a rich but sometimes overlooked resource. Images, documents and maps show a broad range of history but one that also relates to the children’s own local area. This allows children to see the connection with their own past, providing them with examples that they can...

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'...

Co-ordinators concerns: OFSTED, primary history and creativity I'm told the emphasis in schools now is for a rigorous approach to history where the children are taught the main facts and features of history. I recall a time not so long ago when the whole curriculum was about creativity but surely...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. To help children develop a more rounded awareness of historical understanding, they should have the opportunity to examine different types of evidence. The National Curriculum states that, "children should recognise that the past is represented and interpreted...

Place-names, such as house or school names, are infinite in number and all around us. Every place-name may convey a message about the place. Often place-names record and celebrate local and national people, events and incidents, define what a place looked like in the past and how we used to...

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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Should we use the media to teach history? Many people who were ‘turned off' history at school have been brought back to it in later life by visits to historic places and especially by television programmes....

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 looks at using historical sources with primary pupils. Introducing children to sources is an important part of understanding the disciplinary nature of history. One of the key ideas we need to get pupils to understand is that history is based on sources, which...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Written and printed sources are often multi-modal in nature, i.e. they combine images and text (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001). Indeed, many printed sources in the print age, c. 1500-2000 and nearly all in the digital...

1. How to 'read' a house; 2. What sources can we use to learn about railways?

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. The Spring 2008 issue of this magazine, Visual Literacy, highlighted the excellent practice in using visual historical sources that exists in many primary schoolsWe should strive to preserve and extend this critical use of visuals, whatever...

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.

Pat Hoodless answers questions about history and written sources.

Anna Disney and Peter Hammond answer questions about historical maps.

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

Like them or loathe them, statues are excellent learning resources and the recent events in Bristol and elsewhere should not dissuade us from using them to aid children’s historical knowledge and enquiry skills. In fact, in the current climate, statues need a careful re-evaluation of their role within our towns....

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Pages 8-9 detail how functional literacy's concept of genre resulted in the creation of Textbreaker to empower pupils to ‘read' all historical sources, but especially those previously thought too hard for them to tackle. Below is...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Introduction Be positive, ambitious and bold Many teachers, when they realise how deep the literary requirements are which history makes on the young learner, will hastily declare that their own class is either too young or...