-
A creative Egyptian project
Primary History article
Ideally when teaching history, teachers will look to deliver projects that will engage and motivate, hopefully making the hard work of being creative stimulating and rewarding, based upon questioning, enquiry, investigation of sources and reaching conclusions grounded in the evidence.Ancient Egypt is one of those history topics which, because it...
A creative Egyptian project
-
Recorded webinar: Avoiding confusion with chronology and change in primary history
Webinar series: Avoiding confusion and challenging misconceptions in primary history
Webinar series: Avoiding confusion and challenging misconceptions in primary history
Session 1: Avoiding confusion with chronology and change in primary history
This practical webinar will identify what confuses pupils in the teaching of chronology and the disciplinary concept of change and continuity and will show how such confusion and misconceptions...
Recorded webinar: Avoiding confusion with chronology and change in primary history
-
The 1789 French Revolution – not just a revolution in France
HA short course, October–December 2025
Book Now
(Registration is via Cademy which opens in a new window. Please read the course terms and conditions before registering)
What does the course cover?
The French Revolution 1789–99 was not just a turning point in French history but also for the other nations of Europe and beyond. The...
The 1789 French Revolution – not just a revolution in France
-
Napoleon and the creation of an imperial legend
Annual Conference 2013 Podcast
Lecture from the Historical Association 2013 Annual Conference - Podcast
Professor Alan Forrest - University of York
Napoleon would become a nineteenth-century hero, the stuff of legend in a romantic age. This lecture examines the genesis of the Napoleonic myth, and shows how throughout his career he consciously burnished his...
Napoleon and the creation of an imperial legend
-
How glorious was Gloriana? Elizabeth I and her historians
Annual Conference 2013 Podcast
Presidential Lecture from the Historical Association 2013 Annual Conference - Podcast
Professor Jackie Eales - President of the HA and Professor of Early Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University
Elizabeth I's spin doctors created a lasting image of her as Gloriana and when she died her reign was lauded...
How glorious was Gloriana? Elizabeth I and her historians
-
Recorded webinar: Dealing with the issues from lockdown in the primary history classroom
Webinar
In the last 12 months many pupils have missed significant chunks of school and importantly a significant chunk of their history learning. In this special one-off webinar we discuss some of the issues we are all facing. What does catch up in history look like? How helpful is this terminology?...
Recorded webinar: Dealing with the issues from lockdown in the primary history classroom
-
Ofsted Framework 2025: What does it mean for me?
Primary CPD in partnership with the Geographical Association
6 March 2026
Book Now
Supporting quality in primary history and geography
The Ofsted 2025 EIF and report card system are now in schools. The Deep Dive has gone but does this mean that subject expertise no longer matters? In fact the opposite is true. Subject remains at the heart...
Ofsted Framework 2025: What does it mean for me?
-
Recorded webinar: Revisiting the witch trials
Article
The East Anglian witch hunt under Matthew Hopkins, self-appointed Witchfinder General, has garnered a great deal of popular and historical interest over the years. An image has developed of a zealous, misogynistic young man serving crazed 'justice' against supposed witches, whipping up panic and turning neighbours against each other in...
Recorded webinar: Revisiting the witch trials
-
On-demand webinar: Helping children think about similarity and difference
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Session 3: Helping children think about similarity and difference
Historians, when comparing civilisations or places, ask, ‘what is similar?’ and ‘what is different?’ This session will explore disciplinary thinking around similarity and difference, building secure knowledge and equipping children with the vocabulary...
On-demand webinar: Helping children think about similarity and difference
-
On-demand webinar: Helping children think about cause and consequence
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Session 2: Helping children think about cause and consequence
One of the most common questions asked by historians is ‘why...?’ Why did this event happen? How did the event happen? What were the results of this event? This session will explore disciplinary thinking...
On-demand webinar: Helping children think about cause and consequence
-
Virtual Branch Recording: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife
Lives of medieval women
What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives?
Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four who did: Marie de France,...
Virtual Branch Recording: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife
-
Thematic or topic based whole school curriculum planning
Primary History article
Creative curricular planning With the National Curriculum under review, it seems that more schools are taking a creative approach to planning by delivering the curriculum through a focused theme or topic. This has allowed schools to take more ownership of the curriculum and has helped teachers become more innovative in their...
Thematic or topic based whole school curriculum planning
-
Online course: Teaching empire through material culture
HA online course for primary and secondary teachers
The topic of empire lends itself ideally to a material approach – the objects often provide the opportunity to bring in indigenous voices to our study of the imperial past, while our classroom experience has shown that objects provide a powerful channel through which to access complex and sometimes uncomfortable...
Online course: Teaching empire through material culture
-
Virtual Branch Recording: The East India Company and Empire
Foundations and Memory
What can the early history of the English East India Company tell us about the foundations of the British Empire, and where does that history sit within current debates about Britain’s imperial legacy? In this session Mark Williams offers a timely insight into the history of one of the most significant...
Virtual Branch Recording: The East India Company and Empire
-
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
Film: An introduction to the African-American Civil Rights Movement
The US civil rights battles of the latter half of the twentieth century are a common part of popular culture - and yet the detail is often overlooked in favour of the headlines. It is a positive step that so many of us now know the names of Rosa Parks...
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
-
Film: Surviving the Stone Age
Primary History Workshop Annual Conference 2019
This primary workshop took place at at the Historical Association Annual Conference, Chester, May 2019. The workshop featured: Chris Trevor – Presenter of HA subject leader courses/Primary Education consultant and Dave Trevor – Co-presenter of Prehistoric workshops and ex teacher.
This workshop dispelled the popular myths and stereotypes of the Old...
Film: Surviving the Stone Age
-
Recorded webinar: Natural disasters in medieval Britain
Article
Natural disasters frequently affected medieval populations. This webinar explores some examples of what happened when meteorological hazards struck medieval communities, how they reacted and what steps they took to protect themselves against future risks. Through archaeological and historical sources of evidence, Peter Brown explores the diverse impacts unleashed by disasters...
Recorded webinar: Natural disasters in medieval Britain
-
Beyond Multiple Choice: Questions and Answers, Pedagogy and Technology in the History classroom
E-CPD
*This unit was produced a number of years ago and whilst still relevant from the pedagogy side of things many of the ICT aspects are outdated.
Interactivity: A Grail-like QuestIn recent years the buzzword in many sectors, whether it be business, communications, entertainment or education, has been interactivity. One of...
Beyond Multiple Choice: Questions and Answers, Pedagogy and Technology in the History classroom
-
Film: Widening horizons within, and beyond, the taught curriculum
London History Forum Keynote 2019
The film below was taken at the London History Forum: Widening Perspectives which took place on Thursday 25 April 2019 at the UCL Institute of Education and features Will Bailey-Watson (subject lead for PGCE History at the University of Reading).The renewed emphasis on curriculum in many schools is giving history teachers a...
Film: Widening horizons within, and beyond, the taught curriculum
-
Film: Bricks and the making of the city - London in the 19th century
Virtual Branch
In this HA Virtual Branch talk Peter Hounsell drew on his recently published book Bricks of Victorian London, exploring the crucial role brick production played in the creation of Britain's capital and why the important place of bricks in the fabric of the city isn't always obvious.
Peter Hounsell has published...
Film: Bricks and the making of the city - London in the 19th century
-
Film: Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
Virtual Branch Lecture Recording
Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire from 402 CE until 751 CE, then later, the capital of the immense kingdom of Theoderic the Goth and finally the centre of Byzantine power in Italy. In this talk Professor Judith Herrin explores the history of the city, its peoples...
Film: Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
-
Film: The Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (1772-1795)
Repercussions for German-Polish Relations and their Legacy.
Karin Friedrich recently joined the Virtual Branch to discuss aspects of its complex history in her talk on the partitions of Poland, their repercussions for German-Polish relations and their legacy. Professor Friedrich is chair in Early Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen, co-director of the Centre for Early Modern...
Film: The Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (1772-1795)
-
Virtual Branch Recording: Humans
The 300,000 year struggle for equality
In this Virtual Branch talk, Dr Alvin Finkel challenges claims that egalitarian, peaceful societies disappeared with the founding of agriculture or with the founding of state-level social organisation.
Different authors have suggested that early human society was essentially egalitarian in nature, with hierarchies only later becoming common. The point at which...
Virtual Branch Recording: Humans
-
Film: China's Good War
How World War II is shaping a new nationalism
In this lecture Professor Mitter uses film and other propaganda works to explore how key events of global history are being represented in China to develop a different understanding of its own past. The talk addresses a number of the factors for this change in how China is reflecting on...
Film: China's Good War
-
Recorded webinar: Helping primary students understand climate change
Article
How might we integrate a focus on our relationship with the natural world through time in our existing curriculum? Why should we teach about key turning points in human history that have shaped this relationship in profound ways? What is history's role in explaining how we got to this point? ...
Recorded webinar: Helping primary students understand climate change