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Dimensions Of Britishness: Cultural Diversity and Ethnicity
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Teaching history is a balancing act between generalities and the particular. This article seeks to explore how Britishness and ethnic diversity relate to a broader understanding of diversity. We do not challenge the teaching of topics...
Dimensions Of Britishness: Cultural Diversity and Ethnicity
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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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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?
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Campaign: Make an impact and history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What is the role of history in the curriculum? Is it to give a traditional education or because history is a powerful teacher that we all can learn from? In my view well-taught history doesn't leave...
Campaign: Make an impact and history
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Assessment exemplar: children questioning artefacts
Exemplar
Questioning can be used in assessing childrens historical skills, as this example shows.The children were all in Year 4, and were withdrawn from their mixed Year 3/4 class for this lesson. They had covered several aspects of National Curriculum history, including over the past year the Egyptians and a local...
Assessment exemplar: children questioning artefacts
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Citizenship in Ancient Greece: case study
Case Study
This was a ten-week Ancient Greece unit, taught to a Year 6 mixed ability class of 34 children. There was a strong citizenship strand running through the whole programme, particularly the strands of political literacy and critical enquiry (see below).
Citizenship values and concepts, with teaching/learning activities in italics
Appreciation...
Citizenship in Ancient Greece: case study
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Lessons with strong literacy links
Lessons
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.
All history lessons have literacy links. The following lessons on this website have particularly strong links with literacy and the Literacy Hour.
Urban spaces near you - cross-curricular work history, literacy, art & design, and science
The Aztec experience persuasion genre: producing...
Lessons with strong literacy links
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Objects and visual image exemplar: toys and games
Exemplar
This was a half-term cross-curricular topic with a mixed Year 1/2 class. It focused on forces in science, storytelling in English, and objects and pictures in history. The children in the class had a wide range of abilities, with a large number having very poor expressive language. Therefore many of...
Objects and visual image exemplar: toys and games
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Story-telling and simulation exemplar: The Great Exeter Fish War of 1309
Exemplar
The lesson was taught to 44 Year 3 children in a first school in Exeter. It describes how a story was used to introduce a local history unit, and how we followed it up. To begin, we sat the children on the carpet and told them John Hooker's story about...
Story-telling and simulation exemplar: The Great Exeter Fish War of 1309
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Using sites and the environment exemplar: a visit to Petworth House, Sussex
Exemplar
A Year 5 class of 27 children were to visit the North Gallery at Petworth House in Sussex, where the 3rd Earl of Egremont kept his collection of sculptures and pictures. If the children were to learn I needed to give them a focus and a purpose.PreparationBeforehand, in the classroom,...
Using sites and the environment exemplar: a visit to Petworth House, Sussex
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Mystery of the Missing Cake
Lesson
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated
History Mysteries at KS1 and KS2 The lessons centred round a mystery, the theft of a cake in an imaginary land where soft toys or characters from children's nursery rhymes live - Nursery...
Mystery of the Missing Cake
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Using objects and writing KS1 exemplar: Old and new telephones
Exemplar
Lynn Cowell's Year 2 class were doing a project on old and new telephones, with the primary aim of developing the children's skills in investigating objects. During the project, I visited the class once a week.
Lynn and I began by showing the children four telephones: a candlestick phone, an...
Using objects and writing KS1 exemplar: Old and new telephones
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Children writing accounts: the Battle of Trafalgar
Exemplar
Paul Newton's Year 6 class was investigating the Battle of Trafalgar as the introduction to a Victorian study. The sources Paul had chosen were an extract from the diary of Lieutenant Paul Harris Nicholas, of HMS Belleisle, and the famous painting showing the death of Admiral Nelson on the quarterdeck...
Children writing accounts: the Battle of Trafalgar
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Reading documents exemplar: Victorian school advertisement
Exemplar
Reading documents exemplar: Victorian school advertisement
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Reading documents and simulation exemplar: Victorian trade directories
Exemplar
The Year 5 class was soon to visit a local museum where a Victorian parade of shops is recreated. We decided to use the 1857 trade directory for our town, Crediton in Devon, to bring its main shopping street to life before the visit. Trade directories, together with census returns...
Reading documents and simulation exemplar: Victorian trade directories
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Chronology exemplar: overview of Britain since 1930
Exemplar
History co-ordinator Sharon Amess helped a student teacher in the Year 6 class with the Britain since 1930 unit. They decided to introduce the topic with a timeline, followed by group research into elements of British life since 1930, decade by decade.Timescales discussionPlacing photographs along a timeline helped the children...
Chronology exemplar: overview of Britain since 1930
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Urban spaces cross-curricular work: Science
Lesson Resources
Please note: this free resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
This is part of a set of subject areas also covering History, Literacy and Art & Design.
Fieldwork in urban public parks, gardens and open spacesPublic spaces offer a range of opportunities for children's learning, and can enable children to investigate, observe, wonder, record and...
Urban spaces cross-curricular work: Science
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Urban spaces cross-curricular work: Art & Design
Lesson Resources
Please note: these free resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.
This is part of a set of subject areas also covering History, Science and Literacy.
See also Cross-curricular learning
Public spaces offer a range of opportunities for children's learning, and can enable children to investigate, observe, wonder, record and create.
The suggested activities in this section...
Urban spaces cross-curricular work: Art & Design
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Urban spaces near you: cross-curricular work
Lesson Resources
This material covers the following areas - see the page on each one:
History
Literacy
Art & Design
Science
Urban spaces such as parks and gardens offer a range of opportunities for children's learning. There children can investigate, observe, wonder, record and create.
Our urban spaces project presents ideas and...
Urban spaces near you: cross-curricular work
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Teaching the Ancient Greeks: an introduction
Reference guide
This resource 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
Please note: this guide was written before the new National Curriculum...
Teaching the Ancient Greeks: an introduction
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Visual image: boxing boys fresco from Ancient Greece
Lesson Plan
John Fines was working with a class of 28 Year 6 pupils, studying Ancient Greece.
John wrote: Challenge is what the Nuffield Primary History project is all about, and I wanted the class to think hard about the Greeks and to question sources. My learning objectives were for the children...
Visual image: boxing boys fresco from Ancient Greece
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Storytelling: Socrates, Alcibiades, and Athenian democracy
Lesson Plan
Nigel Parker's Year 5 class had just made a start on the Ancient Greeks. In this lesson we began with Athenian democracy, where the free adult male citizens decided everything, even ostracizing generals they didn't like.The story of SocratesI told the children some of the story of Socrates, who taught...
Storytelling: Socrates, Alcibiades, and Athenian democracy
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Ancient Egypt
Reference guide for primary
This resource 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
Please note: this guide was written before the new National Curriculum...
Ancient Egypt
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Drama: Ancient Egypt - Akhenaten
Exemplar
This exemplar outlines a lesson John Fines taught to a class of Year 3 children. He was visiting them for the first time to do some drama work. The children already knew a great deal about the Ancient Egyptians and were also used to learning through drama. John writes:After a...
Drama: Ancient Egypt - Akhenaten
