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Suffrage, feudal, democracy, treaty... history's building blocks: learning to teach historical concepts
Teaching History article
In the UK, thoughtful history teachers have long lamented the fact that the majority of pupils emerge from their compulsory history schooling at 14 with a limited or inadequate understanding of those key historical concepts that are necessary to make sense of the world in adult life. Whilst more able...
Suffrage, feudal, democracy, treaty... history's building blocks: learning to teach historical concepts
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Doomed Youth: Using theatre to support teaching about the First World War
Teaching History article
Many history teachers will have taken their GCSE pupils to School History Scene's Hitler on Trial for a rigorous and inspirational session, using drama, in preparation for the GCSE examination. Josh Brooman has now broadened the work of School History Scene by writing a new play, Doomed Youth, aimed at...
Doomed Youth: Using theatre to support teaching about the First World War
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The 'structured enquiry' is not a contradiction in terms: focused teaching for independent learning
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
Mike Gorman uses the language of the National Curriculum Order to describe and analyse his practice. Yet he throws down a challenge to those who use it uncritically rather than interpreting it to make their...
The 'structured enquiry' is not a contradiction in terms: focused teaching for independent learning
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Teaching History 91: Evidence and Interpretation
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
The uses of sources in History, The evidence sandwich, Teaching Pupils to analyse cartoons, shared stories and a sense of place, Working with sources, interpretations of history and much more...
The use of sources in History - Tony McAleavy (Read article)
The evidence sandwhich - Margaret Mulholland (Read article)
Teaching...
Teaching History 91: Evidence and Interpretation
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A history of the world - 100 objects that tell a story
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial comment: A History of the World is the most creative, imaginative and dynamic development in primary History Education for thirty years. It ties in perfectly with and supports the government's re-vitalisation of primary education that...
A history of the world - 100 objects that tell a story
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Oral history - a source of evidence for the primary classroom
Primary History article
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...
Oral history - a source of evidence for the primary classroom
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The 2024 Primary History survey: what are the implications for what it revealed?
Primary History article
This article 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 subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
The 2024 Primary Survey follows a series of earlier biennial surveys...
The 2024 Primary History survey: what are the implications for what it revealed?
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History, artefacts and storytelling in the 2011 primary curriculum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article will argue that although history can seem a ‘hard' discipline for young children, it can be made accessible and exciting through telling stories about objects. The article does not contain advice about obtaining objects:...
History, artefacts and storytelling in the 2011 primary curriculum
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Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
Teaching History article
No longer is historical significance the ‘forgotten key element.’ Indeed, it is now being remembered at last – by politicians, telly-dons and the media in any case. Matthew Bradshaw suggests that the popular emphasis on significant events is wrong. Instead, we should be enabling our pupils to make their own...
Creating controversy in the classroom: making progress with historical significance
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Using trade directories: reconstructing life 100 years ago
Primary History article
Alf Wilkinson has previously covered the importance of trade directories as a source that teachers can use in primary history. Alf develops this into a case study for a Lincolnshire village that can be used as a template for primary teachers. All communities have distinctive characteristics and Alf outlines these...
Using trade directories: reconstructing life 100 years ago
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Finding voices in the past: exploring identity through the biography of a house
Teaching History article
Heather De Silva, Jenny Smith and Jason Tranter outline a new study unit, planned jointly by their history and geography departments and designed specifically to meet the new requirements for local history required by England’s recently revised National Curriculum for history. They aimed to help pupils to capture a part...
Finding voices in the past: exploring identity through the biography of a house
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How Michael moved us on: transforming Key Stage 3 through peer review
Teaching History article
Thomas Tallis history department have an interesting approach to planning. Whereas, all too often, this most time-consuming and intellectually demanding of teachers’ tasks is rendered invisible, and is supposed to happen by magic in the middle of the night, this department chose to make the planning process genuinely collaborative, pivotal...
How Michael moved us on: transforming Key Stage 3 through peer review
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Why essay-writing remains central to learning history at AS level
Teaching History article
Richard Harris challenges those who play down the essay in their teaching of the new AS Level. He argues that essay-writing embodies historical thinking and that it is therefore an essential tool for developing students’ understanding of history as an opinion-forming, judgement making process. Students need to practise developed, evidential...
Why essay-writing remains central to learning history at AS level
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'Be bloody, bold and resolute': Two possible interpretations of 'local history'
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As a pre-Plowden primary teacher who queued to get my copy of that report in 1967 and as a contributory author to the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2009) forty-two years later I can claim, not an...
'Be bloody, bold and resolute': Two possible interpretations of 'local history'
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Case Study: Prehistory in the primary curriculum: A stonehenge to remember
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
An article in the Sunday Times newspaper on 7 December reported that Britain is to stop making nominations to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) for heritage sites to be granted World Heritage...
Case Study: Prehistory in the primary curriculum: A stonehenge to remember
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Beyond the classroom walls: museums and primary history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Apart from the difficulty of getting hold of a hard copy of the new National Curriculum framework, museum educators have little to worry about in the results of the curriculum review. The framework reveals few changes that will affect what museums have...
Beyond the classroom walls: museums and primary history
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Primary History 46: Citizenship, Controversial Issues & Identity
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
04 Editorial: history, citizenship and the curriculum – a fit purpose (Read article)
05 In My View: citizenship education in primary schools – Lord Adonis
06 In My View: history and identity – Sir Keith Ajegbo
07 Citizenship, identity and culture: Two Poems – Benjamin Zephaniah and an 8th century...
Primary History 46: Citizenship, Controversial Issues & Identity
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Primary History 47: Thinking through history
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
This special edition of Primary History is supported by the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth.
04 Editorial: Thinking through history: opportunity for equality (Read article)
06 In my view: we must support gifted historians from an early age – Lord Adonis (Read article)
07 In my view: why...
Primary History 47: Thinking through history
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A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
Primary History article
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...
A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
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Cavour and Italian Unification
Classic Pamphlet
It may seem a little perverse to write a pamphlet on Cavour in 1972, the centenary year of the death of Mazzini, but no doubt there will be more than one publication on Mazzini to mark the occasion. To pretend that the two men had much in common would be...
Cavour and Italian Unification
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Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
The last edition of Primary History published the first part of the report on the KS2 to KS3 transitions project. Part 1 illuminated the first four of produced eight key ideas or guiding principles for...
Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
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Primary History 41: The power of a good story
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
05 Editorial
06 Primary Noticeboard
08 Creating stories for teaching primary history — Rosie Turner-Bisset (Read article)
10 In My View: using children's literature to look at bias and stereotyping — Russell Jones (Read article)
13 Stories about people: narrative, imagined biography and citizenship in the Key Stage 2 curriculum...
Primary History 41: The power of a good story
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Primary History 32: Bristol and the Slave Trade
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
3 Editorial
4 Primary Noticeboard
6 In My View: Whatever happened to……? - Colin Richards (Read article)
9 History co-ordinators’ dilemmas - Jayne Woodhouse and Tim Lomas
11 Exploring the history on your doorstep with 4Learning - Dinah Starkey
14 Reading, recovering and re-visioning Victorian Women - Jane Martin (Read...
Primary History 32: Bristol and the Slave Trade
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Primary History 45: History in the Foundation and Early Years
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
04 Editorial
05 2006-2007 Historical Association History and ICT project — Alf Wilkinson
08 Citizenship: Citizenship through the English National Curriculum’s The Romans In Britain Study Unit — Hilary Claire
10 In my view: consigning history to the history books — Denis Hayes
11 Introducing history into the KS1 curriculum...
Primary History 45: History in the Foundation and Early Years
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Teaching with Meaning: Supporting Historical Understanding in the Primary Classroom
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In essence, history is a record of human affairs. The problem in making this record is that events are past and gone and have to be reconstructed. Evidence may be uncertain and incomplete. Inevitably, several...
Teaching with Meaning: Supporting Historical Understanding in the Primary Classroom
