-
Exploring the many aspects of neolithic Britain
Primary History article
The Neolithic period provides many challenges – the huge length of time, the limitations of evidence, the many different aspects. This article suggests how a teaching programme might be structured to explore the period. It promotes the idea that these people, so distant in time, were much as we are...
Exploring the many aspects of neolithic Britain
-
Teaching Years 8 and 9 to write analytically about similarity and difference
Teaching History article
Reflecting on the quality of her pupils’ analyses of past diversity and complexity, Molly-Ann Navey was struck by the contrast with their writing geared to other types of disciplinary problem. Navey therefore set out to develop entirely new sequences of lessons which would teach pupils to shape arguments about similarity...
Teaching Years 8 and 9 to write analytically about similarity and difference
-
‘What do they mean by that?’ Helping students to analyse academic writing from Key Stage 3 onwards
Teaching History article
Following her PGCE year, Alex Blelloch became concerned about the ways in which some of the students she observed struggled to engage with the complexities of texts written by historians. More broadly, she was also concerned about the limited opportunities younger students had to engage with historians’ works. In this...
‘What do they mean by that?’ Helping students to analyse academic writing from Key Stage 3 onwards
-
The Historian 99: London and the English Civil War
The magazine of the Historical Association
London and the English Civil War - Barry Coward (Read Article)
The myths about the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion - A. E. MacRobert (Read Article)
Dean Mahomet: travel writer, curry entrepeneur and shampooer to the King - James Bartlett (Read Article)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: introducing students to historical interpretation - Brent Dyck (Read Article)...
The Historian 99: London and the English Civil War
-
Similarity and difference with a tasty twist
Primary History article
Polly Gillow uses ice cream, something children will readily relate to, as a means of exploring similarities between past and present, drawing on a range of sources and contexts together with practical activities including their sense of taste...
Similarity and difference with a tasty twist
-
Olympics, past and present
Primary History article
This article will consider how to use the Olympics as a ‘past event’. It will provide material that will allow children to compare and contrast Olympic Games that have been hosted in Paris. They will be encouraged to look at what has changed in relation to the sports, medals and...
Olympics, past and present
-
Were all Romans in Roman Britain from Rome, Miss?
Primary History article
What comes into your mind when you imagine the Romans in Britain? Is it a soldier? Where did they come from? Your first thoughts – from looking at textbooks and re-enactments – might be that they came from Italy. Alf Wilkinson challenges this image and shows that they included men...
Were all Romans in Roman Britain from Rome, Miss?
-
Unlocking the treasures of early Islam
Primary History article
Lucy Hawker demonstrates her school’s approach to teaching early Islam though focusing on its significance and demonstrating how lessons are effectively sequenced to develop subject knowledge and understanding. The article also indicates rich opportunities that this topic provides for links with other subjects...
Unlocking the treasures of early Islam
-
HA News, Spring 2023
Welcome to the spring 2023 edition of HA News magazine
In this edition of HA News we're eagerly anticipating our upcoming Annual Conference in Harrogate this May. We've lined up some excellent speakers including Professor Dame Mary Beard and we have some unusual and engaging topics, including a General strand talk on 'Victorian Women Lion Tamers' which inspired the front cover of this HA News....
HA News, Spring 2023
-
The Historian 69: Don't Blame the Messengers
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 The adventures of Peter Porcupine: William Cobbett in the United States, 1792-1800 - Noel Thompson
9 Don't Blame the Messengers: News Agencies Past and Present
16 ‘The War against God': Napoleon, Pope Pius VII and the People of Italy, 1800-1814.
22 Squalor and rough justice in Watford
The Historian 69: Don't Blame the Messengers
-
Earth heroes: Etta Lemon, ‘The Mother of Birds’
Primary History article
In this article Ailsa Fidler considers Etta Lemon and her role in halting the plume boom, which saw many bird species driven to the edge of extinction, all in the name of fashion. Linking a study of Etta to the government’s policy on Climate Education, the article shows how Etta’s...
Earth heroes: Etta Lemon, ‘The Mother of Birds’
-
The year without a summer and other cautionary tales
Primary History article
Susie Townsend explores the story of the Tambora volcanic explosion of 1815 and the catastrophic effect that this had on climate around the world. She uses contemporary accounts and images to set the scene. She demonstrates how this one event far away in Indonesia affected climate across the whole world....
The year without a summer and other cautionary tales
-
Dig for sustainability!
Primary History article
Paul Spear uses World War II government advertising strategies such as ‘Make do and Mend’ to consider how to promote modern campaigns related to sustainability. He investigates what the wartime government did to engage with the population as a whole and generate national action. By analysing how images were used...
Dig for sustainability!
-
Exploring sustainability in the Early Years
Primary History article
Lucy Hawker has thought about how we might begin to explore the idea of sustainability with very young children. She suggests focussing on why we might save or reuse materials and objects. She presents a loose structure that could be used to develop talk. She also considers how we might...
Exploring sustainability in the Early Years
-
Young children and chronology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
"How did you stop yourself from getting the plague?"
This quotation from a child signals some of the challenges of teaching children about chronology in the primary school. Learning about chronology involves:
Knowing the conventions of...
Young children and chronology
-
Going to school: a post-1066 thematic study
Primary History article
The post-1066 thematic study provides us with a really exciting opportunity to consider something different. While non-statutory guidance provides some suggestions to consider, the actual possibilities are endless and enable us to choose something highly relevant to our schools. In this article, Paul Bracey invites us to explore schooling over...
Going to school: a post-1066 thematic study
-
Triumphs Show 192: Balancing micro- and macronarratives of the Holocaust
Teaching History feature
Lien de Jong celebrates her 90th birthday in September 2023. In lots of ways, her biography is similar to many Europeans of her generation. She was born, grew up and went to school in The Hague during the 1930s. She trained to work in a nursery. In the 1950s, she...
Triumphs Show 192: Balancing micro- and macronarratives of the Holocaust
-
Using eighteenth-century material culture to develop evidential thinking in Year 8
Teaching History article
It seems that teapots really can talk. Eleanor Dimond took her undergraduate experience of studying material culture into the classroom, with startling results. Historians of material culture have developed distinctive evidential methods which, in stark contrast to typical GCSE and A-Level approaches, see a strong interplay between analysis of the physical attributes...
Using eighteenth-century material culture to develop evidential thinking in Year 8
-
Triumphs Show 121: 60th Anniversary commemoration of the end of WWII
Teaching History feature
It’s early July 2004, and the history department of Harrogate Grammar School are chatting in the staff room enjoying a bit of spare time now that exam classes have disappeared. The subject of what the department will do next year when it comes to trips, speakers and special days comes...
Triumphs Show 121: 60th Anniversary commemoration of the end of WWII
-
Significant anniversaries: Windrush 75
Primary History article
It is 75 years since the ship called the Empire Windrush brought people from the Caribbean to begin a new life in the United Kingdom. Those who also arrived in the years leading up to 1971 are often referred to as ‘the Windrush generation’. Their contribution to Britain socially, culturally...
Significant anniversaries: Windrush 75
-
Benin: exploring an African empire at Key Stage 2
Primary History article
Karin Doull reminds us of the value in studying Benin as a non-European study area and suggests how it might be approached, stressing the importance of placing it in context through comparison. The article addresses worthwhile aspects, key concepts and questions as well as furnishing some key information including extracts...
Benin: exploring an African empire at Key Stage 2
-
The Historian 78: Protestantism and art in early modern England
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
6 Protestantism and art in early modern England - Keith Thomas (Medlicott Lecture to the Historical Association at the Wallace Collection, London, 5 April 2003) (Read article)
18 To what extent was the failure of denazification in Germany 1945-48 a result of the apathy of the allies? -...
The Historian 78: Protestantism and art in early modern England
-
Have gun, will travel: The myth of the frontier in the Hollywood Western
Historian article
The Western movies that from around 1910 until the 1960s made up at least a fifth of all the American film titles on general release signified escapist entertainment for British audiences: an alluring vision of vast open spaces, of cowboys on horseback outlined against an imposing landscape.
For Americans themselves,...
Have gun, will travel: The myth of the frontier in the Hollywood Western
-
Case Study: Creative exploration of local, national and global links 1650
Primary History article
Introduction: Linking two schools
Rather than looking to create connections with schools in distant places, two teachers from two schools located in different parts of the city of Bristol established a successful link which enabled children to appreciate the personal and local histories on each other's doorsteps. 7/8 year old [year...
Case Study: Creative exploration of local, national and global links 1650
-
Artefacts in the neighbourhood
Primary History article
Alf Wilkinson uses an everyday object found near you – a post box – to develop your children’s history skills.
Look carefully at the picture. It is a familiar object in the neighbourhood. It is a postbox – there will be one (or more) near you. Go out and look...
Artefacts in the neighbourhood
