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HA Enquiry Toolkit
How to build an effective historical enquiry at key stages 1 and 2
An enquiry approach is becoming more popular for teaching many primary curriculum subjects. However, enquiry has always been the backbone of good history teaching. Knowing what constitutes a good historical enquiry and how to build one that will enable your pupils to get better at history is not as easy...
HA Enquiry Toolkit
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Viking traders
Lesson Plan (KS2)
Please note: this lesson was produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. It is part of a full sequence of lessons available here.
Enactive learning - a Viking trading game to help children understand the full variety of Viking life and culture. They were so...
Viking traders
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Before 1066 & All That: Transition between KS2 & KS3
HA Guide
This e-cpd unit models how primary and secondary teachers of history might improve transition between KS2 and KS3 through collaboration on a transition unit aimed at Year 6 pupils on the Vikings.
It contains original teaching and training materials written by Andrew Wrenn, former Cambridgeshire Humanities Advisor and funded as...
Before 1066 & All That: Transition between KS2 & KS3
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Virtual Branch Recording: Locating and Mapping the Jews of Medieval Lincoln
Article
As part of a project to identify and write biographies of all of the Jews of the medieval Lincoln Jewry, Natasha Jenman, Luka Liu, and Josh Outhwaite have been working on records of Jewish property ownership in the city across the thirteenth century. This allows them to identify those individuals who will be...
Virtual Branch Recording: Locating and Mapping the Jews of Medieval Lincoln
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Scheme of Work: Exploring Benin’s Big Picture of the Past
Primary Scheme of Work, Key Stage 2 History (resourced)
This unit provides children the opportunity to look at Benin, a non-European society which is very different from their own. Children should make links between Benin and a bigger picture of Africa's past as well as its changing relationship with Britain in order to consider the significance of the arrival...
Scheme of Work: Exploring Benin’s Big Picture of the Past
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Scheme of Work: Local History – transport
Primary Scheme of Work, Key Stage 2 History (unresourced)
Children can be introduced to the idea that transport has changed considerably in the locality over time and that this has had a significant impact on the way that the community has changed and developed. They can also understand how and why these developments have occurred.
This unit is structured...
Scheme of Work: Local History – transport
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Young Quills winners 2024
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction for young people
The Young Quills winners and highly commended have been announced for his year. This competition for historical fiction for children is a way of celebrating and recognising those authors who are continuing the long tradition of creative writing about the past for children.
All of the books are reviewed by...
Young Quills winners 2024
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The Young Quills Shortlist 2022
5th May 2022
The Historical Association is excited to announce the shortlist for the Young Quills, the annual awards for children’s and young adult historical fiction.
5-9 years
The Chessmen Thief, by Barbara Henderson, Pokey Hat Edgar and Adolf, by Phil Earle and Michael Wagg, OUP Oxford The Royal Rebel, by Bali Rai, Barrington...
The Young Quills Shortlist 2022
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Extending the curriculum: why should we consider ‘value added’?
Primary History article
While the focus provided by the new Ofsted framework has allowed schools to begin to, perhaps, rebalance the curriculum, the time allocated to the foundation subjects is still fairly marginal in many schools. This means that hard decisions have to be taken about what to include and what to leave...
Extending the curriculum: why should we consider ‘value added’?
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History and the Literacy Hour
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Amid fears of history being lost from the Key Stage One curriculum, following suspension of the statutory orders, research which considered the use of historical story as part of the Literacy hour, was carried out by Paula Silvera, a final year BEd...
History and the Literacy Hour
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Young Historian Awards 2025 – take part (Primary prizes)
History competition for primary schools
We want young people to get the bug for writing about history in an interesting and critical way. Each year the Historical Association in collaboration with the Spirit of Normandy Trust and Classics for All offers a series of awards to Primary school children for outstanding history scholarship. Children are asked to investigate, think...
Young Historian Awards 2025 – take part (Primary prizes)
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Teaching history through nursery rhymes in the foundation stage
Primary History article
Please note: this article was written before the the 2014 National Curriculum and some content is now outdated.
All teachers working within the foundation stage will, at some time, be using nursery rhymes in their classrooms. Their importance to early language development has long been acknowledged, particularly the way in which they contribute to...
Teaching history through nursery rhymes in the foundation stage
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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
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Young Quills winners 2022
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction for young people
We are delighted to announce the 2022 competition winners for the Historical Association’s Young Quills Awards for Historical Fiction for children and young adults:
Ages 5–9 years category:
Winner: The Chessmen Thief by Barbara Henderson, Pokey Hat, Cranachan PublishingHighly commended: The Valley of Lost Secrets by Lesley Parr, Bloomsbury Publishing
Ages 10–13...
Young Quills winners 2022
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Contribute an Article to Primary History
Initial guidelines for contributors to Primary History
To share good ideas and practice in teaching and learning history
To help develop your own ideas and thinking
Job progression: it can be reflected in your CV and also provides a step towards developing more extensive pieces of writing.
Practitioner articles can be related to further research studies such...
Contribute an Article to Primary History
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The Maya: a 4,000-year-old civilisation in the Americas
Primary History article
Obscured by the fame of the Aztec empire or shrouded by a veil of mystery, the cultural history of the Maya has generally been misunderstood by the British public. Maya civilisation developed in a territory the size of Germany and Denmark together (nearly 400,000 km2). This vast territory shows three...
The Maya: a 4,000-year-old civilisation in the Americas
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The Vikings in Britain: a brief history
Reference guide for primary
Viking Age | In Britain: background | Short history | King Alfred | Later raids & rulers | Key concepts
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This resource is free for 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...
The Vikings in Britain: a brief history
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How the Tudors came to power
Lesson Plan
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The lessons described introduced a unit on the Tudors through the Battle of Bosworth.
In literacy, we had been learning how to identify key words and use these when writing notes. We had focused on information books, in particular a book...
How the Tudors came to power
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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
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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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Young Quills winners 2020
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction
6-9 years category:
The Closest Thing to FlyingBy Gill Lewis, Oxford University Press
10-13 years category:
Our Castle by the SeaBy Lucy Strange, Chicken House
14 years + category:
The Stolen OnesBy Vanessa Curtis, Usborne Publishing
Highly commended:
6-9 years category:
Winter of the Wolves By Tony Bradman, Bloomsbury
10-13...
Young Quills winners 2020
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Creativity in teaching and learning at the Geffrye Museum
Article
Learning and education has always been an essential and central part of the Geffrye museum's purpose. Twice winners of the highly prestigious Sandford Award for Heritage Education, most recently in 2012, our professional learning team works with a broad range of audiences to develop and deliver a wide variety of...
Creativity in teaching and learning at the Geffrye Museum
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A view from the classroom
Article
The end of one school year and the beginning of a new one is always a time for reflection. If it coincides with moving classrooms and changing key stage too, as I am from KS1 to KS2, there is a good opportunity to sort out resources, and plan a fresh...
A view from the classroom
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Visits and Museums
Primary History article
Introduction
In February (2012) Michael Gove announced that he was awarding English Heritage £2.7m to encourage children to explore local heritage sites. Who could disagree with his view that ‘local historic environments can be used to inspire pupils by bringing history alive'? However, why stop there? Any visit to a...
Visits and Museums
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A local history toolkit
Toolkit
Produced by the Historical Association for the National Literacy Trust's "The Olden Times" newspaper resource, May 2011. For more recent resources on local history enquiries see:
Local significant individuals
Local history scheme of work: your local high street
Local history scheme of work: transport
Incorporating local history into a scheme...
A local history toolkit
