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What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
Teaching History feature
One way of explaining what is meant by an enquiry question is to start with what it is not.
What's the Wisdom On... is a short guide providing new history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching. It...
What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
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Raising the bar: developing meaningful historical consciousness at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
How can we help pupils make sense of the history that they learn so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts? How can we help pupils develop and sophisticate...
Raising the bar: developing meaningful historical consciousness at Key Stage 3
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Dickens...Hardy...Jarvis?! A novel take on the Industrial Revolution
Teaching History article
‘Empathy with edge' was the editorial description given eight years ago to the kind of historical fiction that Dave Martin and Beth Brooke first argued history students should be writing (TH 108). The winning entries from the annual ‘Write Your Own Historical Story Competition' to which their work gave rise...
Dickens...Hardy...Jarvis?! A novel take on the Industrial Revolution
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The Invisible Building: St John's in Bridgend
Historian article
Molly Cook, winner of this year's Historical Association Young Historian Local History Award, unravels the mystery of a local icon and tells us about her success in inspiring Bridgend to engage with its fascinating past.
Having worked on previous projects relating to the history of Bridgend and its place in...
The Invisible Building: St John's in Bridgend
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Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism
Teaching History article
‘But I still don't get why the Jews': using cause and change to answer pupils' demand for an overview of antisemitism
Research by the Centre for Holocaust Education has suggested that students need and want more help with building an overview of the historical roots of antisemitism and that they...
Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism
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Triumphs Show: The BeBold Network
Teaching History feature
In April 2019, I was in a bit of a rut. My enquiry questions and lesson sequences seemed stale. I felt like I had been at my school for too long. To mix things up, I secured a new role for September at a start-up school.
Full of excitement, I...
Triumphs Show: The BeBold Network
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
Teaching History feature
Since the first stirrings of religious reform in the sixteenth century, people have been writing the history of the Reformation, debating what happened and why it happened. John Foxe arguably became the first historian of the English Reformation when he published Actes and Monuments in 1563. Better known as ‘The...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
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Trees
Primary History article
This article includes a compilation of a series of articles about significant trees around Britain. It is hoped that this will prompt readers to explore their own environments, helping children to engage with and enjoy nature. Some of the trees in the article are designated as Great Trees. These were significant...
Trees
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Cunning Plan 155: interpreting WW1 events
Teaching History feature
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...
Cunning Plan 155: interpreting WW1 events
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History, ICT and the digital age
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Three things are important
1.Don't fall for the hype
You are not a bad teacher if you are not using a lot of technology in history or any other area! Research evidence does not support many of the claims made about...
History, ICT and the digital age
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Teaching History 199: Ordinary People
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
03 Editorial (Read article)
04 HA Secondary News
06 HA Update
08 When a name is not enough: telling rich stories about women’s lives in the American West at GCSE – Nicole Ridley (Read article)
16 Volunteers against fascism and appeasement: teaching Year 9 about the ordinary people who fought in...
Teaching History 199: Ordinary People
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Doing history: Manorial Court Records
Historian feature
Manorial records are often associated with the medieval period, and while they are a valuable resource for medieval historians, they actually span from the twelfth to the twentieth century. Sarah Pettyfer sheds light on these often-overlooked records, helping family and local historians explore them with confidence...
Doing history: Manorial Court Records
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Teacher trainees writing history
Primary History article
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Introduction
I would like to share some Cumbria University Year 4 primary history specialist student's written work with you. These students who are in their final year have just completed their last assignment...
Teacher trainees writing history
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Teaching History 198: Curriculum Journeys
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
03 Editorial (Read article)
04 HA Secondary News
06 HA Update
08 Unpacking the enquiry puzzle – Ben Arscott (Read article)
16 ‘What’s the point of learning history?’ Establishing a dialogue with Year 9 about why environmental history matters – Alex Benger (Read article)
26 Cunning Plan… for using the story of Eunice Foote...
Teaching History 198: Curriculum Journeys
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Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
Historian article
In this article, Matt Jux-Blayney compares the British retreat from Kabul in 1842 with the most recent flight of NATO from Kabul in August 2021. Matt explores the various similarities between the two campaigns and includes personal recollections from his service in Afghanistan with the British Army.
On 6 January...
Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
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Teaching History 201: Interpreting the Past
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
03 Editorial (Read article)
04 HA Secondary News
06 HA Update: SEND matters
08 Working 9–5: how painters, plumbers and programmers help our pupils understand the role of the historian – Jessie Phillips and Sarah Jackson-Buckley (Read article)
18 What use is the myth of Winston Churchill? Teaching Year 9...
Teaching History 201: Interpreting the Past
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TV: modern father of history?
Historian article
Bettany Hughes Norton Medlicott Medal Winner Lecture
In 1991 I travelled to the BBC for a meeting with a senior television producer. It seemed to me that history just wasn't getting a fair crack of the whip. I talked animatedly about the on-screen discoveries that could be made and the...
TV: modern father of history?
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Polychronicon 131: At your leisure
Teaching History feature
Leisure time - like time itself - is fluid, and keeps changing its social meanings. From a ‘serious' high political perspective there is no history of leisure and leisure is trivial. Such perspectives have long lost their grip on the historical imagination, of course, and we have had histories of...
Polychronicon 131: At your leisure
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Learning history through the lens of artefacts
Primary History article
Lindsay Marshall is a primary school teacher and subject leader for history in a primary school on the Wirral. She has embedded the use of artefacts throughout her school’s curriculum. In this article Lindsay outlines the importance of allowing children to ‘get up close and personal’ with history in order...
Learning history through the lens of artefacts
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The Historian 162: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 162: Environment
Environment, broadly defined as the surroundings in which one lives, is an essential component of the study of past societies. Its importance has given rise to a number of fields of study. In Britain, landscape history was pioneered by W.G. Hoskins in the 1950s, and...
The Historian 162: Out now
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Developing pupils' chronological understanding
Article
In its latest triennial history survey report, History for all, Ofsted concluded that, ‘history teaching was good or better in most primary schools' and, ‘most pupils reached the end of Key Stage 2 with detailed knowledge derived from well-taught studies of individual topics'. The report went on to note, though,...
Developing pupils' chronological understanding
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Polychronicon 150: Interpreting the French Revolution
Teaching History feature
For most of the last two centuries, historical interpretations of the French Revolution have focused on its place in a grand narrative of modernity. For the most ‘counter-revolutionary' writers, the Revolution showed why modernity was to be resisted - destroying traditional institutions and disrupting all that was valuable in an...
Polychronicon 150: Interpreting the French Revolution
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Doing history: Remembering the Wars of the Roses
Historian feature
This article examines how the Wars of the Roses have been remembered through memorials and presents the Battlefields Trust’s Wars of the Roses Memorial Database Project, launched in 2023. The open-access, crowd-sourced database maps monuments, plaques, battlefield markers and local commemorations linked to the conflicts. David Grummitt shows that remembrance...
Doing history: Remembering the Wars of the Roses
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Leopold von Ranke - Pamphlet
Classic Pamphlet
Leopold von Ranke (21 December 1795 - 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history. According to Caroline Hoefferle, "Ranke was probably the most important historian to shape historical profession as it emerged in Europe and the United States in the late 19th century." ...
Leopold von Ranke - Pamphlet
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Can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
Teaching History article
Patterns of genocide: can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides....
Can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?
