Diversity in the past

The materials in this section are all focused on the choices that teachers have to make about the substantive content of their curriculum. The diversity that all students encounter within the past – the range of specific individuals and groups of people about whom they learn – and the ways in which different topics are treated within the curriculum are known to impact on the extent to which young people engage with school history and on the connections that they see between past and present. The resources in this section illustrate different ways in which teachers have increased the diversity of their curriculum – paying more attention, for example, to women other than monarchs in the early modern period; examining the work of  Black British civil rights campaigners; or questioning the stereotype of the English ‘Tommy’ in examining who fought for Britain on the Western Front. Teachers will need to develop their own subject knowledge if they are to teach more diverse pasts and many of these resources help to provide some of that new knowledge or show where it can be found.

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  • Cunning Plan 143: enquiries about the British empire

    Article

    I wanted to give my Year 8 students ownership of their work on the British Empire by allowing them to suggest our ‘enquiry question'. In order to introduce the Empire, I brought in sugar, spices, bananas, chilli peppers and cotton. I then showed maps demonstrating the Empire at its height....

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  • A comparative revolution?

    Article

    Although the curriculum changes of 2008 brought with them new GCSE specifications, Jonathan White was disappointed by the dated feel of some ‘Modern World' options, particularly the depth studies on offer. Drawing on his experience of teaching comparative history within the International Baccalaureate, and building on previous arguments in Teaching History...

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  • Nutshell 135: The challenge of analysing 'difference'

    Article

    Hello Nutshell. What's all this stuff in the NC Attainment Target about ‘nature', ‘extent' and ‘interplay' of diversity? The trick is to look behind the word ‘diversity'. Then it all makes sense...

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  • Teaching History 135: To They or Not To They

    Article

    02 Editorial 03 HA Secondary News 04 Drilling down: how one history department is working towards progression in pupils’ thinking about diversity across Years 7, 8 and 9 – Matthew Bradshaw (Read article) 13 Cunning Plan: The generalisation game - challenging generalisations (Read article) 16 Were industrial towns ‘death-traps’? Year...

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  • Drilling down: how one history department is working towards progression in pupils' thinking about diversity across Years 7, 8 and 9

    Article

    Matthew Bradshaw shares the early, tentative efforts of his history department to shape a new Key Stage 3 workscheme in the light of the 2008 National Curriculum for England. While his department's scheme is designed to secure progression in all conceptual areas, he chooses to focus here on the concept...

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  • Bringing psychology into history: why do some stories disappear?

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. History is always a relationship between the present and the past and the meaning of the past shifts as values and events change in the present. In this article Anne Llewellyn and Helen Snelson use...

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  • Circle Time in the secondary history classroom

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Circle Time is a commonly used technique in primary classrooms and is sometimes used in secondary personal and social education lessons. This open form of classroom organisation allows pupils to share opinions in a democratic...

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  • 'How our area used to be back then': An oral history project in an east London school

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. How can oral history enquiries engage students with the study of history and help them connect their learning about the past to their present lives? How can oral history engage and develop students' understanding of...

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  • Sharing The Past: Northamptonshire's Black History

    Article

    Northamptonshire Black History Association Pub 2008; ISBN:978 0 9557139 1 0; £12.95 [+£2.30 p and p] from: NBHA, Doddridge Centre, 109 St James Road, Northampton, NN5 5LD. How fortunate Northamptonshire history teachers are! With the current emphasis on community cohesion and diversity in the New Secondary Curriculum, they are presented...

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  • Northamptonshire in a Global Context

    Article

    Produced by the Northamptonshire Black History Association and originally published in 2008, this is one of a set of resources for schools offering a more inclusive map of the past that includes an appreciation of Black History within the local, national and global context. The resources provide a range of opportunities to promote diversity within the curriculum....

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  • Representations of Empire: Learning through Objects

    Article

    Produced by the Northamptonshire Black History Association and originally published in 2008, this is one of a set of resources for schools offering a more inclusive map of the past that includes an appreciation of Black History within the local, national and global context. The resources provide a range of opportunities to promote diversity within the curriculum. Contents of...

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  • Seeing a different picture: exploring migration through the lens of history

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Rosie Sheldrake and Dale Banham here share the results of their desire to use the curriculum changes which are upon us to do something which they had intended for some time. Their modern world study...

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  • Understanding Key Concepts: Diversity

    Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. For more recent resources, see How diverse is your history curriculum? and Diversity links and resources for Secondary history. This material enables history teachers to explore the concept of diversity. Section 1 discusses the concept of diversity and its importance in the...

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  • PowerPoint presentation on developing ways to mainstream Black and Asian British history

    Article

    A new PowerPoint presentation by Dan Lydon on developing ways to mainstream Black and Asian British history in the secondary classroom...Click the link below to open the presentation>>>

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  • The T.E.A.C.H. Report

    Article

    The TEACH report outlines the sort of good practice in teaching sensitive topics which is available for teachers to share, not least through the Historical Association's programme of subject-specific training.

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  • You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed:' Teaching history hurts

    Article

    As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...

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  • Identity shakers: cultural encounters and the development of pupils' multiple identities

    Article

    History teachers are increasingly used to the idea that helping pupils reflect on and understand identities is one of the central purposes of history education. In this article Jamie B yrom and Michael Riley reflect on what thinking about identity historically might mean; by considering the history of encounters between...

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  • Teaching controversial issues...where controversial issues really matter

    Article

    This is the fourth in a series of Teaching History articles about teaching history in N orthern Ireland co-authored by Alan McCully. The first two articles (in editions 106 and 114) outlined teaching strategies to help pupils in N orthern Ireland understand and relate to complex and often controversial issues...

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  • Music, blood and terror: making emotive and controversial history matter

    Article

    Lomas and Wrenn, co-authors and compilers of the Historical Association’s DfES-funded T.E.A.C.H 3-19 Report (Teaching Emotive and Controversial History), explore further ideas and examples of good practice from issues arising out of the report’s conclusions. Lomas and Wrenn propose five distinct categories of emotive and controversial history that further develop...

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  • Integrating black British history in the National Curriculum

    Article

    The question of what to include is a constant challenge to those given the responsibility of education, whether writing at the level of a national curriculum or the departmental scheme of work. Dan Lyndon and his department have been rethinking inclusion in history. In any school, representative history is essential...

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