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About Nuffield Primary History
Nuffield Primary History project, 1991-2009
The Nuffield Primary History project developed a range of approaches and techniques for doing history with children, between and 1991 and 2009. The resources produced by the project are all real lessons which have been taught by real teachers. They include guidance on teaching and examples of children's work. Many...
About Nuffield Primary History
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Teaching Styles and Pupil Learning: The Nuffield Primary History Project's Creative, Interactive Pedagogy - The Pupil' Voice
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article is a tribute to the 20th century’s most inspirational history teacher, John Fines. He embodied the principles of ‘doing history’ in his teaching and in the Nuffield Primary History Project that he directed....
Teaching Styles and Pupil Learning: The Nuffield Primary History Project's Creative, Interactive Pedagogy - The Pupil' Voice
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History and language
Primary History article
Literacy was at the heart of the Nuffield Primary History Project. The paper below summarises the eight linguistic areas which were a major focus. Here there is considerable congruence with the proposed 2014 NC for English and Literacy with its language across the curriculum focus...
History and language
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Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London (KS1) - more lessons
Lesson Plans
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.
This resource 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
These...
Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London (KS1) - more lessons
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Powerful Pedagogy
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The introduction of National Curriculum History in England as a statutory subject in 1989/90 faced primary teachers with a major challenge of how to teach a de facto new subject. The Nuffield Foundation funded a curriculum...
Powerful Pedagogy
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Principles for a history curriculum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the mid 1990s the Nuffield Foundation funded the development of a primary history curriculum for Yaroslavl in Russia. It was a contemporary curriculum, choosing issues and concepts of central concern to contemporary society and studying their...
Principles for a history curriculum
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'Doing Local History' through maps and drama
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: John Fines produced two case studies of Local History for the Nuffield Primary History Project. One on them is published here for the first time.
'Doing Local History' through maps and drama
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The Leeds Community History Project
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Nuffield Foundation-funded Leeds Community History Project brought together schools and older community members in the creation of community archives. It focused on articulating, valuing and recording the older generation's memories and knowledge. Its overarching...
The Leeds Community History Project
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Magic History of Roman Britain
Article
Please note: this lesson was produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The Magic History of Roman Britain by Jon Nichol provides a great deal of information about life in Roman Britain in story form. It tells the story of Sam and Jane,...
Magic History of Roman Britain
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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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Vikings: Egils Saga
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.
Key questions in this lesson were:
What did the Vikings value?
What can we discover from sagas and poetry?
(These resources...
Vikings: Egils Saga
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Saxon Ship Burial
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.
The class had investigated life in Roman Britain. A visit to Dewa Centre in Chester together with class lessons and individual...
Saxon Ship Burial
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Saxon Settlers in Britain
Lesson Plans (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.
This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free...
Saxon Settlers in Britain
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The End of Roman Britain
Lesson Plan
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.
Writing poems in the KS2 literacy hour about the Saxon destruction of a Roman town.
(These resources are attached below)
Children...
The End of Roman Britain
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Boudicca
Lesson Plan
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.
Pupils asked:
Who was Boudicca?
What was she like physically and what was she like as a person?
What did other...
Boudicca
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Viking Burial Mound
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.
In this simulation of an excavation, the children investigate a past event and imaginatively reconstruct what happened, on the basis of the...
Viking Burial Mound
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Viking travel
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.
How did the Vikings travel so far?
Using photos to investigate a Viking longboat. (See Gokstad ship for links to photographs.)
Key...
Viking travel
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Vikings: who were they?
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.
This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free...
Vikings: who were they?
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Sutton Hoo: describing artefacts found
Lesson Plan
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.
Questions addressed in this lesson were:
What would you expect archaeologists to find at Sutton Hoo?
Why is it important to...
Sutton Hoo: describing artefacts found
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Caesar lands
Lesson Plan
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.
The class had a clear objective - an understanding of Julius Caesar's landing in Britain, using Caesar's own account in translation...
Caesar lands
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Roman Baths
Lesson Plan
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.
The account tells how we recreated a Roman bath house in the Reception/Year 1 classroom during a ten-week unit learning about...
Roman Baths
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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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Case Study: Pictorial Recording
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
The innovative use of visual images as communication mode and stimulus to writing is provided by Jan, a teacher on one of the Nuffield courses. Children, and adults, have trouble in making effective...
Case Study: Pictorial Recording
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Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
Article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Bog Body mysteries have played a central, seminal role in History Education in Britain since the 1970s. The investigation of the Tollund Man Mystery was the original, introductory investigation for pupils that the Schools Council [aka Schools]...
Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
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Celtic Britain: the land the Romans conquered
Lesson Plan
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.
Literacy was addressed throughout these lessons: introducing the text and the materials about the island, then working on the production...
Celtic Britain: the land the Romans conquered