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Chronology & Topics at Key Stage 2
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Nearly Complete History Of Almost Everything outlines the chronology of various aspects of our lives, and gives a flavour of the enormity at first glanceof ‘teaching chronology'. Topics, which are not tied to a particular...
Chronology & Topics at Key Stage 2
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Timelines and technology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Timelines are basic tools for developing knowledge and understandings about chronology, providing the frameworks and contexts for historical enquiry. Information and Communications Technology [ICT ] offers a range of tools for viewing [and creating timelines, ranging...
Timelines and technology
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Developing pupils' chronological understanding
Article
In its latest triennial history survey report, History for all, Ofsted concluded that, ‘history teaching was good or better in most primary schools' and, ‘most pupils reached the end of Key Stage 2 with detailed knowledge derived from well-taught studies of individual topics'. The report went on to note, though,...
Developing pupils' chronological understanding
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Teaching about racism, fairness and justice through key people
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Our school has no uniform. You can’t predict what most children or teachers will wear from one day to the next. So the children were rather surprised one day in July 1996 when most of...
Teaching about racism, fairness and justice through key people
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Teaching possibilities: From Plato to Nato
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Olympics historical dimension opens up a plethora of possibilities for history, projects and integrated approaches that draw upon the themes and approaches that underpin the primary school curriculum. Our top ten are:
1. Home and...
Teaching possibilities: From Plato to Nato
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Lesson Planning Recipe
Primary History article
Learning objectives
What questions should the children be able to answer at the end of your teaching of the topic? Pare this down to 6 key questions, one for each lesson of a 6-week term. What sub-questions will the lesson address and open up for the next step in the...
Lesson Planning Recipe
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Monitoring, assessment, recording and reporting
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Much of the recent guidance related to assessment, monitoring and recording in primary history has focused more on what does NOT have to be done rather than on practical advice on what might be done. Given...
Monitoring, assessment, recording and reporting
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Planning with literacy
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History is a subject which of necessity makes extensive use of language in all its forms and so the links with literacy are many. Cooper (2000), Bage (1999), Hoodless (1998) and Nichol, in the Nuffield History...
Planning with literacy
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Pupils as apprentice historians (1) - History Detectives
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The historian R.G. Collingwood inspired the Schools Council History Project [SC HP] that transformed the teaching of history in Britain from the early 1970s. The SC HP argued that pupils should be ‘apprentice' historians who developed the...
Pupils as apprentice historians (1) - History Detectives
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In My View: Whatever happened to...?
Primary History article
Older readers of the journal may well remember a classic film, Whatever happened to Baby Jane ? This article asks, and attempts to answer, two parallel questions: "Whatever happened to breadth and balance?" and "Whatever happened to history’s place in the primary curriculum?". The two questions (and their answers) are...
In My View: Whatever happened to...?
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A classroom museum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
Museums are memory boxes. They contain artefacts that tell stories about people in the past. The creation of a class museum is a simple and effective way of bringing the past to life through investigation,...
A classroom museum
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World War II medals at KS2 and Remembrance Day
Lesson Plan
Where World War 2 took placeI wanted the year 5 children to understand World War II in a wider context than just the Home Front in Britain. After reading the lesson on
World War II medals at KS2 and Remembrance Day
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Brunel and Clifton Suspension Bridge
Lesson Plan
Please note: this free resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. For a more recent resource, see our Primary scheme of work on Brunel.
The focus for this literacy hour lesson was a picture, used as a text.
The literacy hour genre was non-fiction. In it we studied a specific Victorian, the engineer...
Brunel and Clifton Suspension Bridge
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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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Local history: young children using written, printed and multimodal sources
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: Jo Barkham shows how creative, challenging and stimulating teaching can engage even the youngest pupils in the reading of written and printed text and multi-modal sources. She continues her account in the next edition...
Local history: young children using written, printed and multimodal sources
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On-demand webinar: Developing formative and extended writing in primary history
Webinar series: History and literacy: better together
History and literacy: better together
Session 5: Developing formative and extended writing in primary history
This webinar will demonstrate how giving pupils opportunities to write formatively can capture their understanding at given points in a learning episode, helping them to structure their developing thinking and supporting teachers in spotting and...
On-demand webinar: Developing formative and extended writing in primary history
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Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2025 - Dr Christine Counsell
Dr Christine Counsell
The Historical Association's Medlicott Medal 2025 was awarded to Dr Christine Counsell. The award seeks to recognise individuals from a diversity of backgrounds in their service to history. Read more about Christine, her work and her award here.
As is the custom, Dr Christine Counsell received her award and presented her...
Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2025 - Dr Christine Counsell
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Primary History 100
Primary History article
This article is free to 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 teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
It is difficult to remember the precarious position of history in...
Primary History 100
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On-demand webinar: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Session 5: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
Handling sources is something all children learn to do in Key Stage 2 history, but often that crucial distinction between ‘source’ and ‘evidence’ is confused. No archaeologist digs up ‘evidence’. And labelling sources as either...
On-demand webinar: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
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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
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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
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Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the autumn of 2009 I agreed to contribute to a project looking at how Saltaire village, Bradford could be developed as an educational site. This is a very popular site visited by many local schools,...
Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
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A Local History Toolkit
Article
IntroductionIn this short paper you will discover some of the tools for ‘doing' local history. They are based on where I live: you can get similar types of sources from where you live, work or teach. Your main source will be a local library or record office, but there is...
A Local History Toolkit
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How can citizenship education contribute to effective local history?
Primary History article
Please note: This article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Citizenship education in primary schools asks children to dig deeply into issues, to gain skills to become advocates and champions for the views of themselves and others and to be confident to take action on...
How can citizenship education contribute to effective local history?
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Doing local history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial comment: ‘Doing Local History' permeates John Fines' oeuvre on the teaching of history - it is both warp and weft. In introducing a Local History case study John outlined the nature and purposes of Local...
Doing local history
