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Using this map and all your knowledge, become Bismarck
Teaching History article
Understanding the past is not an abstract exercise. Historical questions revolve around decisions made by real people under real pressure. As historians, we factor psychological pressure into our analysis. How, though, are we to enable our students to do the same? To study why Bismarck began a programme of overseas...
Using this map and all your knowledge, become Bismarck
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Conceptual awareness through categorising: using ICT to get Year 13 reading
Teaching History article
When presenting their practical approaches to post-16 teaching in Teaching History 103, both Richard Harris and Rachael Rudham argued that students need to ‘do’ things with information, to process it, play with it, classify it, if they are ever to understand or remember it. They made a case for not...
Conceptual awareness through categorising: using ICT to get Year 13 reading
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... piracy and empire in the early modern world
Teaching History feature
The topic of early modern global piracy has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent decades, partly due to its own intrinsic interest and, it must be said, its entertainment value. However, historians have also explored its connections with broader themes such as empire and colonisation, social history, global economic networks,...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... piracy and empire in the early modern world
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Mughal moments made memorable by Movie Maker
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Rosalind Stirzaker has introduced some fascinating topics at Key Stage 3. Her pupils, living in Dubai, have the opportunity to study the Islamic Empire, the Mughal Empire and Mespotamia as well as many of the...
Mughal moments made memorable by Movie Maker
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Triumphs Show 130: Righting the Revolution
Teaching History feature
It was period 5 on a wet Wednesday afternoon deep into the winter term. Year 9 were even more difficult than usual. Being cooped up inside at lunch, without supervision, had not helped the situation. What was I going to do with this untamed bunch? Put on a trusted video?...
Triumphs Show 130: Righting the Revolution
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Investigating ‘sense of place’ with Year 9 pupils
Teaching History article
Confined to his home during lockdown in 2020, teacher Josh Mellor became eager to explore the history of the physical environment on his doorstep. After reading about different approaches to using environmental history in the classroom, Mellor decided to design an enquiry to explore the changing landscape of the Fens in...
Investigating ‘sense of place’ with Year 9 pupils
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Out and About in Lyme Regis
Historian feature
Explore Lyme Regis’ past as John Davis guides you on a historical trail through the iconic seaside town...
Out and About in Lyme Regis
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Cunning Plan 196: Does women’s suffrage deserve a more prominent place in Australia’s national narrative?
Teaching History feature
In this Cunning Plan, Jonathon Dallimore and Martin Douglas explore how teaching about the history of the suffrage movement in Australia can be used to raise questions both about the campaign for votes for women in Australia and wider questions about what defines Australian history. They also open up the...
Cunning Plan 196: Does women’s suffrage deserve a more prominent place in Australia’s national narrative?
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Move Me On 194: dealing with students’ current concerns when teaching the history of climate change
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 194: dealing with students’ current concerns when teaching the history of climate change
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Balderstone St Leonard’s CE Primary School: our journey to the Quality Mark Gold Award
Primary History article
Kate Turner provides a fantastic insight into the way in which their school has achieved the Gold Standard Quality Mark. She demonstrates both the overarching themes that underpin the history curriculum in the school but also their sensitivity to ethnic and cultural diversity, the rich opportunities gained through engaging with...
Balderstone St Leonard’s CE Primary School: our journey to the Quality Mark Gold Award
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My Favourite History Place: David Pearse explores St Petersburg
Historian feature
If you want to understand Russian history from Peter the Great up to at least the 1917 Revolutions, you have to visit St Petersburg. Like Versailles, St Petersburg was built for an absolute monarch, on an unsuitable site, at the cost of many labourers' lives. Unlike Versailles, it was designed...
My Favourite History Place: David Pearse explores St Petersburg
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The Historian 154: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 154: Jubilee
Welcome to the latest edition of The Historian. This Jubilee edition is a way of drawing together a series of articles that are either about the Jubilee or about royalty and Queenship. It is also a chance to mark the 70 years of our patron HM...
The Historian 154: Out now
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New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the ‘no-quick-fix’
This page is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Each problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don’t exist. But in others’ writing, you’ll find something better: conversations in which history teachers have debated or tackled your problems – conversations which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 172: Curriculum planning
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Chronology - an Olympic timeline
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Pat Hoodless illuminates how chronology can provide a spine, a backbone and an ‘essential framework' to support and shape pupil learning of NC History.
The Olympic movement provides the perfect opportunity to consider the broad sweep...
Chronology - an Olympic timeline
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Where might the Gunpowder Plot sit within the principles of the new model curriculum?
Primary History article
The government has proposed creating a model curriculum for history. This will contain a range of non-statutory and supplementary guidance to focus history teaching. In July 2022, terms of reference to identify principles and approaches underpinning the model history curriculum were published. There will be an advisory panel that will...
Where might the Gunpowder Plot sit within the principles of the new model curriculum?
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Using diaries to stimulate children's understanding of the past
Primary History article
Children develop their understanding of the past through a range of historical sources of evidence. Written sources may provide different types of information for children to work from. Records such as census returns or street directories provide information about families and tradespeople living in a particular communities and old maps...
Using diaries to stimulate children's understanding of the past
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Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
Historian feature
In this article, Rob Pritchard reflects on his long-standing engagement with the Black Country Living Museum, exploring how visits to this ‘living history’ site transformed his approach to teaching history...
Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
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Beyond slavery
Teaching History article
Influenced by her own experiences, preliminary research, and recent political events, Teni Oladehin sought to thoroughly review how Black history was introduced to her students at Key Stage 3. In particular, she aimed to introduce Black history with an ‘authentic’ narrative which brought Black agency into the foreground. In this article, Oladehin shows how an enquiry on the significance of Mansa Musa both...
Beyond slavery
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The right to fight: women’s boxing in Britain
Historian article
In this article Matthew Taylor explores the history of women’s boxing in Britain from the early eighteenth century onwards, showing how prevailing gender norms have led to this activity being marginalised by historians. It is argued that the key women boxers he discusses should be celebrated as key figures, not just in the history of sport but...
The right to fight: women’s boxing in Britain
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Storytelling the past
Primary History article
This article will demonstrate how to engage children through storytelling and how it can be used to develop their critical understanding of the past.
Why story?
Despite their common derivation, the words ‘history’ and ‘story’ suggest very different kinds of knowledge, the former carrying overtones of detached understanding of the...
Storytelling the past
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The Historian 149: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 149: Pandemics
This edition of The Historian follows immediately after the annual Local and Community History Month, which we launched many years ago. Although our expressed purpose on this occasion is to place a special focus on the concept of pandemics and epidemics, a number of our...
The Historian 149: Out now
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Move Me On 172: Not just relying on the textbook
Teaching History journal feature
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 172: Not just relying on the textbook
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What’s The Wisdom On... Extended Reading
Teaching History feature
Why, in a history lesson (or out of a history lesson; let’s say, for a homework perhaps) might we want pupils to read more than a paragraph, to stay with the text, to actually read? We don’t mean plucking facts from information boxes, nor ploughing through four comprehension questions. We...
What’s The Wisdom On... Extended Reading
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Move Me On 173: teaching the GCSE thematic study
The problem page for history mentors
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 173: teaching the GCSE thematic study
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Year 7 use oral traditions to make claims about the rise and fall of the Inka empire
Teaching History article
As part of her department’s effort to diversify the history curriculum, Paula Worth began a quest to research and then shape a lesson sequence around the Inkas. Her article shows how she allowed the new topic and its historiography to challenge and extend her own use of sources, particularly oral tradition....
Year 7 use oral traditions to make claims about the rise and fall of the Inka empire
