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HA Update: History for all – a wider view
Teaching History feature
In this update, I plan to share ideas and practice from colleagues who lead and teach history in special schools in the northeast of England. Ten years have passed since the publication of History for All and this therefore seems a good moment for reflection. By 2011, in many of England’s schools,...
HA Update: History for all – a wider view
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Touching, feeling, smelling, and sensing history through objects
Teaching History article
Lots has been written in recent years about how history teachers can bring academic scholarship into the classroom. This article takes this interest in academic practice a step further, examining how pupils can engage directly with the kinds of sources to which historians are increasingly turning their attention: the ‘everyday’ objects of ordinary life. Building on...
Touching, feeling, smelling, and sensing history through objects
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History teacher subject knowledge reading list
One Big History Department blog post
Subject knowledge updating is enjoyable and a huge challenge in a busy teacher's life.
There are fantastic initiatives which make this process more collegiate. And some historians are incredibly generous with their time and engage with history teachers on social media and at conferences. Nevertheless, there can’t be many of us who...
History teacher subject knowledge reading list
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Berlin and the Holocaust: a sense of place?
Teaching History article
As more and more schools take students on visits to locations associated with the history of the Holocaust, history teachers have to find ways to make these places historically meaningful for their students. David Waters shows here how he introduced his students to the multiple narratives associated with the history...
Berlin and the Holocaust: a sense of place?
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Suffrage enquiries: free history and citizenship lesson sequences
History and citizenship lesson sequences for Key Stage 3, GCSE and A-level
Looking for ways to better teach the suffrage campaign and move away from focusing on just a handful of individuals? To accompany our searchable database of suffrage campaigners, we have created a number of free fully-resourced history enquiries and citizenship activities, each featuring a sequence of lessons:
Suffrage enquiries: free history and citizenship lesson sequences
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‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
Teaching History article
Many history departments choose to begin their Year 7 curriculum with an introduction to the nature of history and the processes in which historians engage as they develop, refine and substantiate claims about the past. In this article, Adbul Mohamud and Robin Whitburn report on an such an introductory unit, designed with a specific focus on the history...
‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
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Film: Preparing a history department for the new inspection framework
London History Forum Workshop
This film was taken at the HA London History Forum at the Institute of Education, UCL (University of London) in November 2019 and features Kath Goudie (Cottenham Village College).
Drawing on her experience as a history teacher, teacher trainer and assistant headteacher Kath Goudie shares reflections on how the history...
Film: Preparing a history department for the new inspection framework
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Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
Teaching History feature
Over 50 years ago I read my first serious book on American history. I can still remember the excitement of reading William E. Leuchtenburg’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. His description of FDR and American politics in the 1930s seemed so much more colourful and dramatic than...
Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
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Central and Local Government in Scotland Since 1707
Classic Pamphlet
This pamphlet provides an interesting approach to a historical topic which has been too frequently covered from a single viewpoint. The pamphlet delivers a thoroughly Scottish approach to the nature of the 1707 Union and the changing nature of Scotland in the following centuries. It highlights the disparity of the...
Central and Local Government in Scotland Since 1707
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The Great Powers in the Pacific
Classic Pamphlet
This pamphlet covers a very large period of history in a very important region with great detail and focus. Themes that are covered include the transition of power and dominance in the pacific region, the conflicts that frequently arose in the struggle for pacific dominance throughout the centuries, as well...
The Great Powers in the Pacific
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Being historically rigorous with creativity
Teaching History article
After a Fellowship in Holocaust Education at the Imperial War Museum, Andy Lawrence decided that something was missing in normal approaches to teaching emotive and controversial issues such as genocide, a deficit demonstrated by recent research by the Holocaust Education Development Programme. As part of his fellowship, Lawrence created an...
Being historically rigorous with creativity
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Analytic and Discursive Writing at Key Stage 3
HA Guide
Christine Counsell's core message is that, because analytical and discursive writing is seen as difficult, it is often considered impossible. Instead, those very difficulties should be the focus of continuous professional analysis by all history teachers. Counsell argues that only a thorough analysis of those difficulties will yield suitable creative...
Analytic and Discursive Writing at Key Stage 3
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Identity in history: why it matters and must be addressed!
Teaching History journal article
Sophia Nzeribe Nascimento, a mixed-race teacher working in a diverse London school, set out to explore her students’ assumptions about who historians are. While her own ethnicity and gender may have convinced at least some of her students that history is not exclusively the preserve of old white men, she...
Identity in history: why it matters and must be addressed!
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Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
Teaching History journal article
Recognising the duty placed on all teachers by the 2010 Equality Act to nurture the development of a society in which equality and human rights are deeply rooted, Helen Snelson and Ruth Lingard were prompted to ask whether their history curricula really reflected the diverse pasts of all people in...
Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
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Move Me On 92: Having problems teaching causation
The problem page for history mentors
This Issue's Problem: Melville Miles, student history teacher, is in Term 3 of his PGCE year. Melville has taught a number of excellent lessons in which he enabled pupils to reach high levels of historical understanding. His diagnostic assessment of pupils' work is unusually sophisticated for a PGCE student. Melville's...
Move Me On 92: Having problems teaching causation
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Triumphs Show 172: The history classroom lending library
Teaching History feature: celebrating and sharing success
Tim Jenner and Jessica Angell share how the History Department Lending Library at Cambourne Village College began and developed, and the positive impact it has had on both students and staff.
Triumphs Show 172: The history classroom lending library
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Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools
Article
Are you teaching 20th-century history? Do you want to refresh your teaching of the campaign for women’s rights and equal representation?
Don’t forget to register for the Suffrage Resources website, a free resource developed specifically for schools to help teachers and students explore the rich history of the suffrage movement and...
Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools
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New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the no-quick-fix
Was your diet of school history mostly modern? Are you more comfortable debating the industrial revolution than the feudal revolution? And do you now find yourself teaching more medieval history, particularly at GCSE and A-level? Recent changes to the examination specifications in England have made the medieval mainstream, and as...
New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
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Podcast: Why Medieval History Matters?
Medieval History
Why Medieval History Matters, Professor Anne Curry, President of the HA ‘I don't mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but there is no reason for the state to pay for them'. So, allegedly, said Charles Clarke when Education Secretary in 2003. In fact, medieval history has never...
Podcast: Why Medieval History Matters?
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South
Teaching History feature
The historiography of the British Empire has taken a long course since the era of decolonisation. Political histories of the late twentieth century considered the mechanisms connecting crises at the ‘periphery’ with metropolitan decision-making. One rather overused stereotype was the so-called ‘man on the spot’ pushing empire forward, be they...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South
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Circle Time in the secondary history classroom
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Circle Time is a commonly used technique in primary classrooms and is sometimes used in secondary personal and social education lessons. This open form of classroom organisation allows pupils to share opinions in a democratic...
Circle Time in the secondary history classroom
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Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Diana Laffin shares her findings on an action research project into the use of remote voting systems in the AS and A2 classroom. She was particularly interested in examining the impact of such devices on...
Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
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Using the present to construct a meaningful picture of the medieval past
Teaching History article
In this article, Jessica Phillips returns to a theme explored in the Historical Association’s publication Exploring and Teaching Medieval History in Schools – the challenge of teaching about the medieval past in ways that acknowledge its vibrant complexity and create a genuine sense of resonance rather than condescension or blank...
Using the present to construct a meaningful picture of the medieval past
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Challenging stereotypes and avoiding the superficial: a suggested approach to teaching the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Alison Kitson provides a rationale for a scheme of work for Year 9 (13-14 year-olds). She argues that teachers should analyse the kind of historical learning that is taking place when the Holocaust is studied. Critical of the assumption that learning will take place as a result of exposure, she...
Challenging stereotypes and avoiding the superficial: a suggested approach to teaching the Holocaust
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Drilling down: how one history department is working towards progression in pupils' thinking about diversity across Years 7, 8 and 9
Teaching History article
Matthew Bradshaw shares the early, tentative efforts of his history department to shape a new Key Stage 3 workscheme in the light of the 2008 National Curriculum for England. While his department's scheme is designed to secure progression in all conceptual areas, he chooses to focus here on the concept...
Drilling down: how one history department is working towards progression in pupils' thinking about diversity across Years 7, 8 and 9
