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Incorporating the Second World War into your local history work
Primary History Summer Resource 2018
The 2018 primary summer resource for members is bursting with practical ideas on how to incorporate the Second World War into your local history work. September 2019 is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, so what better time to start thinking about how to embed this...
Incorporating the Second World War into your local history work
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Learning to engage with documents through role play
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
First let me say that I did not research the materials used or plan this lesson. For this I must acknowledge, with thanks, that this is the work of my colleague, Mike Huggins, and the senior...
Learning to engage with documents through role play
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Scheme of Work: Brunel
Primary Scheme of Work, Key Stage 1 History (unresourced)
At Key Stage 1, pupils are asked to examine the lives of significant individuals who have also contributed to national achievements. A study of Isambard Kingdom Brunel provides a fascinating example of an individual whose technological and engineering advances have helped to shape the face of Britain.
Children can identify...
Scheme of Work: Brunel
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Teaching and learning through personal, family and local history
E-CPD
N.B. This unit was produced before the 2014 curriculum and therefore while much of the advice is still useful, there may be some out of date references or links.
This unit is concerned with the way that primary age pupils can make use of their own personal, family and local history...
Teaching and learning through personal, family and local history
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One of my favourite history places: Mount Fitchet Castle
Primary History feature
Alf Wilkinson explores Mount Fitchet Castle in Essex – one of his favourite history places.
As every schoolchild knows, William the Conqueror landed near Hastings in 1066, pursuing his claim to the throne of England. He was accompanied by the pope’s blessing, but also by an army of adventurers who...
One of my favourite history places: Mount Fitchet Castle
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Women and space: reaching for the stars
Primary History article
The exploration of the heavens has drawn mankind since the dawn of time. Vast monuments reached to the stars marked with astrological key points. Astronomers sought to understand the movement of the universe. Since the twentieth century however this investigation has moved into space itself, pioneered by restless and inquisitive souls...
Women and space: reaching for the stars
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How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
Primary History article
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
The Integrated Planning Process
Introduction - Rigour ‘v' enrichment. Despite loathing the term rigour, an empty word that has numerous definitions depending on who you speak to, many teachers, Head teachers and curriculum leaders are seeking ways of integrating and...
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
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Using Local Buildings
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Whilst there are many obvious historical buildings - castles, Roman Villas and Abbeys these often involve transport costs which may be beyond a school budget. Turner-Bisset suggests:
There is also history in ordinary, everyday sites,...
Using Local Buildings
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Researching History - Time travellers and Role Players
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘Ok children, time for history.'
Distant moans from the back of the class. Would I be surprised by this reaction? No, not if the teacher was diligently following the QCA guidelines for teaching history. Yes, if...
Researching History - Time travellers and Role Players
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Online CPD Unit: Creativity in the History Classroom
E-CPD
Oh no - not more extended writing! Firing pupil motivation through creative tasking.
This E-CPD unit considers the issues departments needs to consider in planning for both challenging and engaging history.
The example of teaching below comes from the Historical Association Key Stage 2-3 History transition project website (2005). The...
Online CPD Unit: Creativity in the History Classroom
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Means and Ends: History, Drama and Education for Life
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
John Fines, Raymond Verrier and I frequently taught as a team trying to discover where drama work and history meet. We were interested in helping children get a grasp of past events which have influenced their...
Means and Ends: History, Drama and Education for Life
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Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History: on-demand short course
Online self-guided short course for lifelong learners
This self-guided short course provides an introduction to European witchcraft history from the fifteenth century to the present. Using a range of primary sources, the course explores important themes and questions relating to witchcraft history, examining how witchcraft has been imagined and understood at different times and in different places, and why...
Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History: on-demand short course
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Grace Darling
Lesson Plan
I taught a short history topic on Grace Darling, using a painting as the main focus, to encourage evidence-based learning. The painting depicts Grace and her father rowing towards the rocks where the remains of the Forfarshire are resting, with the lighthouse in the distance.
The speaking and listening elements...
Grace Darling
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Scheme of Work: Early Islam, including Baghdad
Primary Scheme of Work, Key Stage 2 History (resourced)
Children can be introduced to the idea that people from other civilisations have contributed to many ideas that impact on us still. They can learn about some of the differences in way of life between citizens of Baghdad and London c. AD 900. Links can be made with other cultures...
Scheme of Work: Early Islam, including Baghdad
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Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
The last edition of Primary History published the first part of the report on the KS2 to KS3 transitions project. Part 1 illuminated the first four of produced eight key ideas or guiding principles for...
Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
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History Coordinators' Dilemmas: Catering for the Gifted and Talented
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Gifted and talented in history? I can understand it in music and physical education, maybe in numeracy but surely not history? All curriculum areas have now been told that they have to identify such children...
History Coordinators' Dilemmas: Catering for the Gifted and Talented
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‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
Teaching History article
As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...
‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
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Key Stage 1 local history through fresh eyes
Primary History article
Upon approaching this article on teaching the local history component of the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1 I decided to focus on one school, to look at what they normally deliver, and to put forward suggestions that could be used to enhance their existing unit of study.
I visited Pencoys...
Key Stage 1 local history through fresh eyes
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Two Babies That Could Have Changed World History
Historian article
'At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival. Congratulations.’ This telegram was sent from Luxor on the 6th November 1922 by Howard Carter to his coarchaeologist Lord Carnarvon in Britain. It started the Tut·ankh·Amen story which led to a...
Two Babies That Could Have Changed World History
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Visual literacy: Look, talk, write - Using a picture to extend vocabulary
Primary History article
Editorial note: Primary History's theme edition on Visual Literacy, PH 49, Summer 2008, addressed the role of visual literacy in developing pupil language: spoken, enacted and written.
Introduction - words for pictures
Stimulus - child engagement
Some years ago, a friend's eight year old daughter arrived with a pack of...
Visual literacy: Look, talk, write - Using a picture to extend vocabulary
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Thinking through history: Story and developing children's minds
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Story is the crucial factor in children’s awareness of past times in their ‘mythic’ phase of mental development, see page 4. Everyone loves a story, stories ‘open out fresh fields, the illimitable beckoning of horizons to imagination…...
Thinking through history: Story and developing children's minds
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History in the Early Years: Bringing the Romans to life
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Children arrive at school or nursery with their personal, unique mental ‘models’ of the world. the challenge for us is to expand these so that increasingly the pupils will be able rationally to make sense of the...
History in the Early Years: Bringing the Romans to life
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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
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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
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Oral history, a powerful tool or a double edged sword?
Primary History article
We all agree that oral history is a particularly powerful and attractive method for children to gather evidence and appreciate the real life relevance of history. From the Early Years to Year 6, many of us look deliberately for the opportunities to bring a visitor into the classroom, who will...
Oral history, a powerful tool or a double edged sword?
