-
History, drama and education for life
Primary History article
Drama plays a crucial role in bringing the past to life. For children it enables them to develop their understanding of motivation, behaviour and historical contexts within an essential chronological framework. Primary History 48 , History, Drama and the Classroom, explores the scope and nature of Drama for teaching history....
History, drama and education for life
-
Using museums and artefacts
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Over several years of reporting on primary history, the use of museums and artefacts has been identified in Ofsted reports as an issue for schools to address. Although there is now far greater expertise in...
Using museums and artefacts
-
Unpicking the learning potential in creative approaches to studying World War II
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘The biggest issue for school history is its limited place in the curriculum.' (Ofsted, 2007)
This central concern of Ofsted's 2007 report, History in the balance, could equally apply to the teaching of drama in primary schools....
Unpicking the learning potential in creative approaches to studying World War II
-
Effective management of history in the revised curriculum
Article
This section examines ways in which the subject leader can prove an effective manager and co-ordinator. It looks at issues such as the main activities of a subject leader, effective but manageable assessment and how the quality of history in the primary school can be monitored and evaluated.
Effective management of history in the revised curriculum
-
Powerful Pedagogy
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The introduction of National Curriculum History in England as a statutory subject in 1989/90 faced primary teachers with a major challenge of how to teach a de facto new subject. The Nuffield Foundation funded a curriculum...
Powerful Pedagogy
-
Principles for a history curriculum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the mid 1990s the Nuffield Foundation funded the development of a primary history curriculum for Yaroslavl in Russia. It was a contemporary curriculum, choosing issues and concepts of central concern to contemporary society and studying their...
Principles for a history curriculum
-
Ideas for Assemblies: the role of the international community in the First World War
Article
As part of our First World War centenary-themed assemblies, in the last issue of Primary History we focused on the importance of the local dimension. Here we have chosen to look at the role of the international community in the First World War. This approach reflects and celebrates our multi-cultural...
Ideas for Assemblies: the role of the international community in the First World War
-
From Home to the Front: World War I
Primary History article
Events which encapsulate family, community, national and global history provide rich opportunities for engaging children. Some of these draw on positive memories associated with past events: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, how people responded to the first flight to the moon, the Millennium celebrations. Yet it is perhaps gruelling...
From Home to the Front: World War I
-
The digital revolution
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Developments in information technology continue at an extraordinary pace. Many young children will have little or no idea of what it was like to live in a world without mobile phones, computers and the Internet.
Most children will regularly make use...
The digital revolution
-
In My View: Whatever happened to...?
Primary History article
Older readers of the journal may well remember a classic film, Whatever happened to Baby Jane ? This article asks, and attempts to answer, two parallel questions: "Whatever happened to breadth and balance?" and "Whatever happened to history’s place in the primary curriculum?". The two questions (and their answers) are...
In My View: Whatever happened to...?
-
Don't forget key skills!
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
With the pressure on curriculum time in primary schools, and the need to concentrate on literacy and numeracy, many teachers have recently felt that visits outside the classroom are a luxury. The introduction of Curriculum 2000, though, puts renewed importance on learning...
Don't forget key skills!
-
Subject leader’s site: assessment and feedback
Primary History article
Very few teachers prefer assessment to teaching yet the latter has little point if there is no way of knowing that what we teach is beneficial to our pupils. The problem is that there is no such thing as perfect assessment and feedback. For example, you cannot assess everything –...
Subject leader’s site: assessment and feedback
-
Raising the profile of history in your school
Primary History article
All too often, with increasing pressure to obtain the ‘best’ results, primary schools allow English and mathematics to steal the limelight, unwittingly pushing other subjects to one side. As a consequence, these ‘other’ subjects are squeezed into vehicles to teach English or maths – barely recognisable under the guise of...
Raising the profile of history in your school
-
Early Islamic civilisation
Primary History article
The Primary National Curriculum pinpoints Early Islamic Civilisation as Baghdad c. AD 900 - yet it was so much more. For approximately a thousand years after AD 700 there was an extraordinary amount of activity that radiated out from Baghdad and along a glittering crescent through North Africa and into...
Early Islamic civilisation
-
Keeping children motivated in primary history while ensuring they can recall what they have been taught
Primary History article
Rachelle Blagdon leads history at Thomas Walling School – one that has already earned a gold Quality Mark. Impressing the assessor particularly was the way the school paid dual attention both to the motivation aspect of the subject and to effective curriculum planning. Four particular approaches were used to enhance...
Keeping children motivated in primary history while ensuring they can recall what they have been taught
-
Assessment and Progression without levels
Primary History article
The new (2014) Primary History National Curriculum is finally upon us. The first thing you might notice is that the level descriptions have gone. These were first introduced in 1995 and became the mainstay for assessing pupil progression and attainment in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 across schools in...
Assessment and Progression without levels
-
English Heritage's Heritage Explorer
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
[THINK BUBBLE, has burst, r.i.p... Diogenes, a curmudgeonly Ancient Greek cynic, has taken its place. The original Grumpy Old Man Diogenes typically looks back to a mythical golden age]
Introduction
Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember a time when primary school...
English Heritage's Heritage Explorer
-
Teaching possibilities: From Plato to Nato
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Olympics historical dimension opens up a plethora of possibilities for history, projects and integrated approaches that draw upon the themes and approaches that underpin the primary school curriculum. Our top ten are:
1. Home and...
Teaching possibilities: From Plato to Nato
-
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
-
Epistemic insights: bringing subject disciplines together
Primary History article
"Teaching epistemic insight goes hand in hand with teaching a broad and balanced curriculum. It includes building students’ understanding of the ways that different types of disciplinary knowledge can help us to address questions that bridge subjects and disciplines." (Teaching and Learning about Epistemic Insight brochure, https://crc.up.pt/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2017/09/epistemic-insight-brochure.pdf)
The Epistemic Insight Project...
Epistemic insights: bringing subject disciplines together
-
Music in the History Curriculum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
In a primary school in Devon, there is a teacher who sings to his class every day: traditional songs; love songs; lyrical ballads; sea shanties; tales of mystery and suspense; songs of ritual and ceremony, hunting songs,...
Music in the History Curriculum
-
Teaching about the translatlantic slave trade and emancipation
Primary History article
Introduction – slavery, abolition and emancipation 25 March 2007 marked the bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It is not compulsory to teach about the slave trade. However, the links to the National Curriculum – particularly in history, citizenship and geography – are clear. The...
Teaching about the translatlantic slave trade and emancipation
-
Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
Article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Bog Body mysteries have played a central, seminal role in History Education in Britain since the 1970s. The investigation of the Tollund Man Mystery was the original, introductory investigation for pupils that the Schools Council [aka Schools]...
Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
-
A Victorian Christmas
A Victorian Xmas
The Historical Association In Alliance With Association for Language Learning. Cross-Curricular Unit: Year 5/6 French and History. A Victorian Christmas.
A Victorian Christmas
-
Geosong: a transition project
Primary History article
How do we engage young people with their Heritage, answer curriculum needs and make that big leap of transition from primary to secondary school that bit easier?
English Heritage's Geosong treasure hunt website went some way to providing answers. What does the website do? Using handheld GPS devices, groups must...
Geosong: a transition project
