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Training for the marathon: history at Michaela
Teaching History article
Michael Taylor begins his piece by reminding us that writing great history essays is hard. He compares the process to running a marathon, and his central thesis is that, just as the best training for running a marathon is not running marathons, so the way to encourage students to produce...
Training for the marathon: history at Michaela
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Modelling the discipline
Teaching History article
David Hibbert and Zaiba Patel decided to work together after becoming concerned that school history curricula might not enable students to interrogate popular British mythologising about World War II. Building on these pre-existing concerns, their collaboration with the historian Yasmin Khan yielded an Interpretations enquiry which asked students to consider...
Modelling the discipline
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What’s the wisdom on… Interpretations of the past
Teaching History feature
How often do your pupils actually look at the products of historians – their scholarly writing, their debates, their to-and-fro of argument?
What's the Wisdom On... is a short guide providing new history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of...
What’s the wisdom on… Interpretations of the past
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How history learners can ‘dig school’ under lockdown
Teaching History article
In March 2020, when Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions saw schools closed to the majority of children, Carenza Lewis quickly began thinking of ways to help both teachers and parents. Drawing on extensive experience of enabling children and young people to learn from practical engagement in archaeology, she came up with a...
How history learners can ‘dig school’ under lockdown
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Film: Domestic Politics and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford and Professor Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford, discuss the impact that domestic politics and rebellion had on Tudor Royal Authority and the development of domestic policy.
If you're unable to see the film below, please use the link for your Membership...
Film: Domestic Politics and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
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What’s in a narrative? Unpicking Year 9 narratives of change in Stalin’s Russia
Teaching History article
Is it structure or the selection of knowledge that makes writing historical narrative so difficult? Where does a conceptual focus on change, or causation, come in? James Ellis set out to explore the challenges his Year 9 pupils faced in writing historical narratives about change. Inspired by the work of...
What’s in a narrative? Unpicking Year 9 narratives of change in Stalin’s Russia
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Film: Personality and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford and Professor Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford discuss the role and significance of 'personality' to Tudor Royal Authority.
If you're unable to see the film below, please use the link for your Membership type:Historian members | Primary members |...
Film: Personality and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
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Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Dr Anna Whitelock from Royal Holloway, University of London, discusses the life of Mary I, the first crowned Queen of England. Dr Whitelock looks at Mary's difficult early life, her submission to Henry VIII and the rise of a warrior princess. Dr Whitelock explores Mary as a courageous...
Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
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Cunning Plan 178: How far did Anglo-Saxon England survive the Norman Conquest?
Teaching History feature
Cunning Plan for using the metaphor of a tree to help students characterise the process of change and engage with a historian’s argument.
In this Cunning Plan, Eve Hackett sets out how she used a recent work of history about the Norman Conquest as inspiration for her teaching of Year...
Cunning Plan 178: How far did Anglo-Saxon England survive the Norman Conquest?
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What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
Teaching History feature
Decolonisation is a contested term. When first used in 1952, it referred to a political event: a colony gaining independence; it has since come to describe a process. When, where and why this process began, however, and whether it has ended, are all fiercely debated. Is it about new flags...
What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
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Film series: Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film, Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford, discusses provides an overview of how Tudor Royal Authority developed and evolved from the first Tudor King, Henry VII, to the final Tudor Queen, Elizabeth I.
Film series: Tudor Royal Authority
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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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Historical and interdisciplinary enquiry into the sinking of the Mary Rose
Teaching History article
The raising of Henry VIII’s warship, the Mary Rose, from the sea bed set in train an extraordinary programme of interdisciplinary research, relentlessly pursuing the clues to Tudor life and death provided by the remains of the ship, its cargo and crew. In this article Clare Barnes offers fascinating insights...
Historical and interdisciplinary enquiry into the sinking of the Mary Rose
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Film: Inequalities in the teaching and practice of history in the UK
Discussion: Response to the RHS report
This resource is free to everyone. For access to our library of high-quality secondary history materials along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of history teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
This film (above) recorded in March 2019 features a discussion between Jatinder...
Film: Inequalities in the teaching and practice of history in the UK
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Religion and Politics 1559-1642
Classic Pamphlet
It is a truism to say that religion and politics were inextricably mixed in the seventeenth century.
"So natural" wrote Richard Hooker,"is the union of religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not" Sir John Eliot observed that in the House of Commons...
Religion and Politics 1559-1642
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Anatomy of enquiry: deconstructing an approach to history curriculum planning
Teaching History article
It is almost 20 years since Michael Riley first invited Key Stage 3 history teachers to ‘choose and plant’ their enquiry questions. Many members of the history education community have taken up that invitation, making use of overarching enquiry questions to structure students’ learning. But what is meant by enquiry...
Anatomy of enquiry: deconstructing an approach to history curriculum planning
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Podcast: The Historical Medicalization of Homosexuality & Transvestism
Podcast
In this podcast, Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester, looks at the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism.
1. Introduction: the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism
HA Members can listen to the full podcast here
Suggested Reading:
Tommy Dickinson (2015) "Curing Queers": MentalNurses and their Patients 1935-1974.
Peter Conrad &...
Podcast: The Historical Medicalization of Homosexuality & Transvestism
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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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Changing thinking about cause
Article
Aware both that causation is the bread and butter of the historian’s craft, and that trainee teachers find it far harder to teach well than they anticipate, Alex Ford sought to get to the heart of the problem with causation, especially at GCSE. When teaching to a specification and mark...
Changing thinking about cause
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Family stories and global (hi)stories
Teaching History article
Teaching in Greece, a country with extensive recent experience of immigration, Maria Vlachaki and Georgia Kouseri were interested to examine how they might use family history as a means of exploring the historical dimensions of this potentially sensitive topic. They hoped that encouraging pupils to explore their relatives’ stories would...
Family stories and global (hi)stories
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Teaching Year 8 pupils to take seriously the ideas of ordinary people from the past
Teaching History article
Jacob Olivey wanted Year 8 to know that ordinary people in the nineteenth century constructed their own identities. In this reflection on how his practice developed in his training year, Olivey illustrates the importance of using historical scholarship in choosing foundational knowledge to teach. He shows how he used that...
Teaching Year 8 pupils to take seriously the ideas of ordinary people from the past
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Using narratives and big pictures to address the challenges of a 2-year KS3 curriculum
Teaching History article
Faced with cutting her Key Stage 3 curriculum to two years, Natalie Kesterton and her department were determined to do more with less. Not only did they want to ensure that their pupils developed a secure, wide-ranging knowledge of British and world history, they also wanted to address deficits in pupils’...
Using narratives and big pictures to address the challenges of a 2-year KS3 curriculum
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What’s the wisdom on… Evidence and sources
Teaching History feature
The year 1910 saw the publication of a remarkable book on history teaching by M.W.Keatinge.
The purpose of this guide. What's the Wisdom On... is a short guide providing new history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching....
What’s the wisdom on… Evidence and sources
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Why this? Why now? Reviewing your history curriculum
North West History Forum keynote
Richard Kennett gave the keynote at the first HA North West History Forum at the end of January. He has turned his talk into this article so more of us can benefit from his thinking about curriculum.
This piece is unashamedly about curriculum. Put simply, curriculum is what stuff we choose...
Why this? Why now? Reviewing your history curriculum
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Podcast: The Life and Significance of Alan Turing
Podcast
In this podcast Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester discusses the life and significance of Alan Turing. Please note this is only the first section of the full podcast which is available to HA Members
Alan Mathison Turing, (23 June 1912–7 June 1954) was a British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician,...
Podcast: The Life and Significance of Alan Turing
