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England Arise! The General Election of 1945
Historian article
‘The past week will live in history for two things’, announced the Sunday Times of 29 July 1945, ‘first the return of a Labour majority to Parliament and the end of Churchill's great war Premiership.’ Most other newspapers concurred. The Daily Mirror, of 27 July, proclaimed that the 1945 general election...
England Arise! The General Election of 1945
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‘Weaving’ knowledge
Teaching History article
Diane Relf was concerned by what felt like an unbridgeable gulf between Year 7’s vocabulary and comprehension, and her aspirations both for their inclusion in history and their later academic success. As a subject leader without the benefit of any history-specific training at the start of her career, she embarked on...
‘Weaving’ knowledge
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Historical learning using concept cartoons
Teaching History article
Although perhaps unfamiliar to the majority of our readers, concept cartoons are not a new educational tool. Christoph Kühberger here lays out his rationale for using this technique, borrowed from science education, in history teaching. Concept cartoons provide a means for pupils to express such difficult historical concepts as the...
Historical learning using concept cartoons
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Recorded webinar: History teachers as teachers of reading
Developing confident readers and writers in the history classroom and beyond
Students and teachers can perceive literacy, particularly the challenges of extended reading and writing, to be a barrier to enjoyment of and success in history. Repeated lockdowns over the past two years have, despite teachers’ most creative and dedicated responses to remote learning, made it even harder to help children...
Recorded webinar: History teachers as teachers of reading
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English Heritage and Historical Association Local Heritage Project
Article
One year ago (2011), the south eastern branch of English Heritage and the Historical Association came together to see what we could do better in partnership. The outcome was the Local Heritage Partnership Project. The vision was to work together to provide access to and inspiration to carry out local...
English Heritage and Historical Association Local Heritage Project
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WWI and the flu pandemic
Historian article
In our continuing Aspects of War series Hugh Gault reveals that the flu pandemic, which began during the First World War, presented another danger that challenged people’s lives and relationships.
Wounded in the neck on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, Arthur Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley...
WWI and the flu pandemic
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Bringing school into the classroom
Teaching History article
The Secondary Education and Social Change (SESC) research project team at the University of Cambridge collaborated with four secondary school history teachers to produce resource packs for teaching Key Stage 3 pupils about post-war British social history through the history of secondary education.
In this article, Chris Jeppesen explains the...
Bringing school into the classroom
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Trampolines and Springboards
Teaching History article
Frustrated by his pupils’ tendency to compartmentalise source analysis into two discrete parts of ‘source’ and ‘own knowledge’, Jonathan Sellin reflected that his use of scaffolds might be to blame. Inspired by recent work by teacher-researchers Hammond and King on the importance of secure substantive knowledge in the area of...
Trampolines and Springboards
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Using sites for insights
Teaching History article
Working alongside local history teachers to prepare for the new GCSE specifications Steve Illingworth and Emma Manners were struck that many teachers were concerned about two issues in particular: the breadth and depth of knowledge demanded and new forms of assessment, especially the historic environment paper. In this article they...
Using sites for insights
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Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
Teaching History article
As historians, we are dependent on evidence, which comes in many varieties. Rosalind Stirzaker here introduces a project which she ran two years ago to encourage her students to think about artefacts in a different way. They have examined randomly preserved artefacts such as those of Pompeii, and sets of...
Inverting the telescope: investigating sources from a different perspective
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Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
Historian article
Perhaps no other British figure of the twentieth century has been as vilified or as celebrated as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. In 1999, a BBC Radio 4 poll of prominent historians, politicians and commentators rated Chamberlain as one of the worst Prime Ministers of...
Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
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Making rigour a departmental reality
Teaching History article
Faced with the introduction of a two-year key stage and a new whole-school assessment policy, Rachel Arscott and Tom Hinks decided to make a virtue out of necessity and reconsider their whole approach to planning, teaching and assessment at Key Stage 3. In this article they give an account of...
Making rigour a departmental reality
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Using nominalisation to develop written causal arguments
Teaching History article
How nominalisation might develop students’ written causal arguments
Frustrated that previously taught writing frames seemed to impede his A-level students’ historical arguments, James Edward Carroll theorised that the inadequacies he identified in their writing were as much disciplinary as stylistic. Drawing on two discourses that are often largely isolated from...
Using nominalisation to develop written causal arguments
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Nazism and Stalinism
Classic Pamphlet
Is it legitimate to compare the Nazi and Stalinist regimes? There might seem little room for doubt. It is often taken as self-evident that the two regimes were variations of a common type. They are bracketed together in school and university courses, as well as text books, under labels such...
Nazism and Stalinism
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The Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
Can a movement as varied and diffuse as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century be contained within the covers of a short pamphlet? The problem would certainly have appealed to the intellectuals of that time. Generalists rather than specialists, citizens of the whole world of knowledge, they relished the challenge...
The Enlightenment
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Women in British Coal Mining
Historian article
With the final closure of Britain’s deep coal mines, Chris Wrigley examines the long-standing involvement of women in and around this challenging and dangerous form of work.
With the closure in 2015 of Thoresby and Kellingley mines, the last two working deep coal mines in Britain, leaving only open-cast coal...
Women in British Coal Mining
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Content restricted and maturation retarded? Problems with the post-16 history curriculum
Teaching History article
Mike Tillbrook examines the impact of the new AS and A2 courses, raising several serious concerns. He explores problems for effective and rigorous assessment as well as implications of the new course structure for the quality and range of historical learning. Critical of new restrictions in content, he suggests that...
Content restricted and maturation retarded? Problems with the post-16 history curriculum
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The archer's stake and the battle of Agincourt
Historian article
Our perspective on how archers performed in battle is enhanced byMark Hinsley's research into their use of protective stakes.
On the approach to Agincourt in 1415 a small skirmish took place at Corbie, on the Somme. A force of French men-at-arms sallied out from the town and cut up some...
The archer's stake and the battle of Agincourt
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Cunning Plan 96: teaching citizenship through KS3 history
Teaching History feature
Big theme: dissent and the formation of the concept of ‘rights'
You can teach citizenship not only without compromising National Curriculum content, processes and concepts, but in such a way as to improve them. Review your department's ‘whole Key Stage' planning. Secure rigour and high levels of challenge by remembering...
Cunning Plan 96: teaching citizenship through KS3 history
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The British General Strike 1926
Classic Pamphlet
‘The General Strike is a challenge to Parliament and is the road to anarchy and ruin.' (Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister, 6th May 1926).
‘The General Council does not challenge the Constitution ... the sole aim of the Council is to secure for the miners a decent standard of life. The Council...
The British General Strike 1926
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The Battle of Waterloo: Sunday 18 June 1815
Historian article
John Morewood explores the events of 18 June 1815 in detail and asks just how accurate is our view of what happened on the field of Waterloo.
Summary
Waterloo is the most famous battle in a four-battle campaign fought from 15 June to 19 June 1815. On one side were...
The Battle of Waterloo: Sunday 18 June 1815
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The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa
Classic Pamphlet
The dissolution of colonial empires since the Second World War is a major theme of contemporary history, and one which will challenge historians for many years to come. There are still sharp disagreements as to how this change should be described. European scholars tend to use the term ‘decolonization' (at...
The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa
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Polychronicon 158: Reinterpreting Napoleon
Teaching History feature
On 18 June 2015, the two-hundredth anniversary of the great battle of Waterloo will be commemorated in Britain and on the continent (though not in France). It will represent the climax of the Napoleonic bicentenary, which has been in full flow since the turn of the twenty-first century. Fresh biographies...
Polychronicon 158: Reinterpreting Napoleon
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GCSE Controlled Assessment
Briefing Pack
Context:
Following a great deal of adverse publicity about coursework, the then-QCA carried out a study into cheating and plagiarism. It released this in 2005 and found that about 4000 students a year were being caught for breaching the rules. The blame was laid at the internet especially custom-made essays...
GCSE Controlled Assessment
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Beware the serpent of Rome
Article
On 14 February 1868, the Carlisle Journal reported as follows: … two meetings were held in the Athenaeum in this city , “for the purpose of forming an auxiliary to co-operate with the Church Association in London, to uphold the principles and order of the United Church of England and...
Beware the serpent of Rome
