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Scene shifting: Using visuals for chronology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Vivid pictures from and of the past, its material culture, can be stimulating and effective tools for teaching chronology.
Their use is not, however, straightforward. Children bring into school mental images and stereotypes about the past...
Scene shifting: Using visuals for chronology
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Chronology & Topics at Key Stage 2
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Nearly Complete History Of Almost Everything outlines the chronology of various aspects of our lives, and gives a flavour of the enormity at first glanceof ‘teaching chronology'. Topics, which are not tied to a particular...
Chronology & Topics at Key Stage 2
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Time, Chronology, language and story
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Time, although an extremely complex, abstract concept, is one that begins to develop in children's minds as soon as they are born. Although it cannot be seen or touched and leaves no visible trace, very young...
Time, Chronology, language and story
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Think Bubble - Jumping stories: selective chronology
Primary History feature
I recently finished a most interesting commission with the educational publishers, Schofield and Sims. They asked me to help put together a comprehensive timeline of British History to cover as broad a chronological perspective as possible. They wanted this to be the complete Cavemen to Cybermen story all on one...
Think Bubble - Jumping stories: selective chronology
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A View from the Classroom - Chronology
Primary History feature
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As a teacher, the passing of time in a classroom may be: challenging, stimulating, appear endless, be subject to constant change, though never dull. Years pass, yet at times it can seem but yesterday, when I...
A View from the Classroom - Chronology
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Teaching Time
Primary History article
History is about time, it subsists in time, time is the medium by which it happens. No-one can deny the importance of time in teaching history, yet it is probably the one element that causes more dispute than any other. The meaning of time
Understanding time
There is time we...
Teaching Time
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Ancient Greece: Birthplace of the Olympics - Teacher Briefing
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: Below is a one-page outline of a wonderful briefing replete with visual and textual sources and teaching ideas from The Cambridge Schools Classics Project (CSC P). The outline below consists of the full introduction...
Ancient Greece: Birthplace of the Olympics - Teacher Briefing
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Story, myth and legend: The Story of Atalanta
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Time and change in stories
Everyone loves a story and stories have always been at the heart of early years education. Children can relate their own experiences of time to stories in picture books about other...
Story, myth and legend: The Story of Atalanta
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The Berlin Olympics 1936
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Nazi Germany was the backdrop of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The Nazi party used the games for propaganda whilst hiding its racist and militaristic campaign. The following activities seek to encourage historical inquiry and interpretation, through...
The Berlin Olympics 1936
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Racism and equality through the 1936 Berlin Olympics: the Olympics, Nationalism and Identity
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article outlines ideas for teaching history with crosscurricular links to citizenship, with a Year 6 class...
Racism and equality through the 1936 Berlin Olympics: the Olympics, Nationalism and Identity
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William Brookes and the Olympic Games
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History flows like a river, sometimes quiet and unobtrusive, sometimes a raging torrent with wide-ranging effects on the world around us. It is punctuated by momentous events and significant individuals, who impact on its direction and...
William Brookes and the Olympic Games
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Your Victorian (And Greek!) Olympic Games
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The teaching ideas below are adapted from an idea the great John Fines developed for teaching Ancient Greek science. With active teacher support and guidance, it requires the pupils to use what they know, and their...
Your Victorian (And Greek!) Olympic Games
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Local History and the 2012 Olympics
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
With the 2012 London Olympics rapidly approaching, you are probably marvelling at what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this is and what amazing classroom teaching opportunities it might bring.
You have probably already been inundated with ideas for...
Local History and the 2012 Olympics
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An Olympic Great? Dorando Pietri
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Italian confectioner Dorando Pietri is one of the most famous figures from the 1908 Olympics - famous for not winning. His story raises issues of sportsmanship suitable for class discussion. There are detailed accounts readily...
An Olympic Great? Dorando Pietri
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The Olympic Games, Classical and Modern
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Possibly a ‘once in a lifetime' experience will be witnessing the British hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games. Despite the inevitable commercialisation of the event, it will certainly be possible for children to be excited and...
The Olympic Games, Classical and Modern
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Using the Olympics as a learning tool: Active Research and Selecting Information
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The London 2012 Olympics presents a fantastic opportunity for cross-curricular teaching. All children are likely to be engaged on some level, with different countries represented in a variety of sports, huge coverage in the news and...
Using the Olympics as a learning tool: Active Research and Selecting Information
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Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the autumn of 2009 I agreed to contribute to a project looking at how Saltaire village, Bradford could be developed as an educational site. This is a very popular site visited by many local schools,...
Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
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Lesson Planning Recipe
Primary History article
Learning objectives
What questions should the children be able to answer at the end of your teaching of the topic? Pare this down to 6 key questions, one for each lesson of a 6-week term. What sub-questions will the lesson address and open up for the next step in the...
Lesson Planning Recipe
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Planning with literacy
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History is a subject which of necessity makes extensive use of language in all its forms and so the links with literacy are many. Cooper (2000), Bage (1999), Hoodless (1998) and Nichol, in the Nuffield History...
Planning with literacy
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The History around us: Local history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History is an important aspect of the development of even very young children. They need to begin to develop the foundations of an understanding of the past and how it has developed and affected our present....
The History around us: Local history
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Whose history is it anyway?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The main goals of educating children are meeting their educational and achievement needs. Herein is the challenge. Our classrooms are a cornucopia of diversity. The most prominent or acknowledged being gender, class, religion and ethnicity. Some...
Whose history is it anyway?
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Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Even an inclusive national history curriculum can make Britain (and Europe) appear as the lynchpin of world history. Without a coherent structure for global history, young people remain unaware that continents beyond Europe have histories of...
Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
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From Kings To Queens to Sources and Evidence
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Until the mid 1930s the vast majority of children attended elementary schools, which went through from five to fourteen. In theory pre-war schools were left relatively free to teach in the way they chose as there...
From Kings To Queens to Sources and Evidence
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Children's Thinking: Developmental psychology and history education
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: Hilary Cooper outlines the main features of historical thinking. These ideas are embedded in the government's current requirements for teaching National Curriculum History [England]
Introduction
It is important that children develop a coherent, chronological...
Children's Thinking: Developmental psychology and history education
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Storytelling - how can we imagine the past?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Simon Schama's plea to "reinvent the art and science of storytelling in the classroom" made the media headlines and echoed centuries of educational history (Bage 1999). "It is, after all, the glory of our historical tradition...
Storytelling - how can we imagine the past?
