This e-cpd unit models how primary and secondary teachers of history might improve transition between KS2 and KS3 through collaboration on a transition unit aimed at Year 6 pupils on the Vikings. It contains original teaching and training materials written by Andrew Wrenn, former Cambridgeshire Humanities Advisor and funded as...

Connecting Classrooms: bringing together Bradford and Peshawar, primary and secondary schools, history and English In this article, Dianne Excell shares her experience of a crossphase, collaborative project funded by the British Council that brought together teachers and pupils from three schools in Bradford and five schools in Peshawar, Pakistan. Although...

OK, so it's another acronym. What's it mean? Concepts of History and Teaching Approaches at Key Stages 2 and 3. Chata tried to get a picture of 7 to 14 year-old kids' ideas about history (just over 400 of them in all). That's their ideas about the discipline and how...

Enquiry Question: What's worth knowing about the First World War? At the end of our scheme of work on the First World War, I asked myself how I might encourage my Year 9 pupils to reflect on the historical significance of the events we had studied. I was particularly interested...

This is the third of 5 sessions arising from the 2005 KS2-KS3 History Transitions Project: Transition training session 1: Historical Enquiries & Interpretations Transition training session 2: Using ICT in the teaching of history Transition training session 3: Extended writing in history Transition training session 4: Joan of Arc - Saint, Witch...

The Global Learning Programme (GLP) is a ground-breaking new programme which will create a national network of like-minded schools, committed to equipping their students to make a positive contribution to a globalised world by helping their teachers to deliver effective teaching and learning about development and global issues at Key Stages 2...

This is the first of 5 sessions arising from the 2005 KS2-KS3 History Transition Project: Transition training session 1: Historical Enquiries & Interpretations Transition training session 2: Using ICT in the teaching of history Transition training session 3: Extended writing in history Transition training session 4: Joan of Arc -...

What’s been happening in primary history lately? Invited to write an update on this, I decided to identify some themes that might be helpful to secondary teachers.  As a senior lecturer in primary education with responsibility for history and as a member of the HA Primary Committee, I was able...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on Victorian crime and punishment. This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on the portrayal of poor, Victorian children. While factual knowledge about conditions in workhouses is an essential component of the unit, the main focus is on contrasting portrayals of one fictional Victorian child, Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist. The...

Year 7 history teachers frequently bemoan the lack of historical learning in the primary sector. Pupils may be well versed in suffixes and similes, but their study of history can be limited. This group of history teachers decided that things could be different. Not only did they bring enquiry methods...

This is the 4th of 5 sessions arising from the 2005 KS2-KS3 History Transitions Project: Transition training session 1: Historical Enquiries & Interpretations Transition training session 2: Using ICT in the teaching of history Transition training session 3: Extended writing in history Transition training session 4: Joan of Arc - Saint,...

Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum. For more recent resources on Transition KS2-KS3 please see: Transition KS2–KS3 (Primary History article, 2021) Smooth Transitions: Key Stage 2 to 3 (Primary History article, 2020) Transition Key Stage 2 and 3 (Primary History article, 2016) Before 1066 & All That: Transition between...

Rosie Turner-Bisset describes a systematic attempt to teach non-specialist trainee primary teachers to understand how the discipline of history works. She reports encouraging results. The training methods described here are based on a working assumption that teachers must be passionate and excited about a subject in order to teach it...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on ways of portraying life in Victorian Britain. While factual knowledge of aspects of Victorian life in Britain are a vital component of the unit, the main focus is on exploring the way living museums present the period,...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on the evacuation of children during the second world war. While the factual knowledge of evacuation is an essential component of the unit, the main focus is on exploring the varied feelings and experiences of children sent to...

This edition of 'Nutshell' concentrates on primary history.

There are three basic strands to our lessons. How should we teach? What skills should we enable our students to build? What content should we use to deliver those skills? In this article Tony McConnell, who has been re-designing the curriculum in his school in response to a changed examination regimen, considers the issue of subject...

In the 2014 national curriculum for primary and secondary history one of the key differences is that, for the first time since 1991, there are no level descriptions against which you can assess pupils' progress.  The new attainment target says simply that: ‘By the end of each key stage, pupils...

Do they learn about Agincourt in France? 2015 was a year of anniversaries. As part of our funded commemoration projects surrounding the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, we have commissioned an enquiry looking at the battle and how it has been remembered, particularly aimed at pupils in years...