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Move Me On 163: Ahistorical thinking
Teaching History feature
Jane Whorwood’s concern to encourage students to think for themselves is leading to some very ahistorical thinking.
Jane Whorwood has proved to be a generally confident and positive trainee, largely due to two years’ experience as a cover supervisor before committing to a formal training programme. She has made a...
Move Me On 163: Ahistorical thinking
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Less time, more thought: coping with the challenges of two-year Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Nathan Cole and Denise Thompson have really thought about Key Stage 3. They have been forced to; they now teach it in only two years. The switch to a two-year Key Stage 3 has made them re-evaluate their entire programme of study, and their rationale for teaching history. The result...
Less time, more thought: coping with the challenges of two-year Key Stage 3
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Cunning Plan... for studying medieval Ghana and Aksum
Teaching History feature
This Cunning Plan details an enquiry that I developed in order to achieve two curricular goals: to diversify our historical content and to help students to improve their disciplinary thinking and writing about similarity and difference. The enquiry addresses medieval Africa, specifically the East African kingdom of Aksum (approximately 300...
Cunning Plan... for studying medieval Ghana and Aksum
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction 2025 – The winners
The HA’s writing competition for children aged 10-15 years
Take time, a place and a character or two, and you can create some of the most exciting stories ever told – and by telling a story you unleash a desire to seek knowledge, to entertain, to inform and to enrich the lives of others. Storytelling is one of the oldest...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction 2025 – The winners
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Were industrial towns 'death-traps'? Year 9 learn to question generalisations and to challenge their preconceptions about the 'boring' 19th century
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Kimberley Anthony and her history colleagues were troubled by Year 9's assumption that World War II was the only interesting thing that they were going to do in Year 9. Nineteenth-century industrialisation, even their own...
Were industrial towns 'death-traps'? Year 9 learn to question generalisations and to challenge their preconceptions about the 'boring' 19th century
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Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Jacob Olivey set out to design enquiries which would enable his pupils to reconstruct, using evidence, the perspectives of people in the past. In this article he shares in detail the planning and outcomes of two enquiries: one for Year 7 and one for Year 8. Olivey offers a example...
Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
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Assessment without Level Descriptions
Teaching History article
Two heads of department in contrasting schools explain why they do not use Level Descriptions at all, other than at the very end of Key Stage 3. Influenced by ‘assessment for learning' principles, Sally Burnham and Geraint Brown develop a case for using assessment to help pupils grow in understanding...
Assessment without Level Descriptions
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Great Debate FAQs
The Great Debate
Below are some frequently asked questions about the Great Debate and the logistics of the heats.
If you need more information, you can get in touch with us directly at greatdebate@history.org.uk.
How does the debate work?
Each student will have five minutes to deliver their argument in response to the...
Great Debate FAQs
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On-demand Secondary CPD calendar
Information
We know that it’s not easy for teachers to access CPD: workload is high, budgets are tight and it can be difficult to get out of school. We know how essential subject-specific professional development is to you and that is why we have worked to provide a wide range of...
On-demand Secondary CPD calendar
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The Wellcome Collection Study Visits
Visits
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library exploring health and human experience. It is the extraordinary legacy of an extraordinary man: Henry Wellcome.
Drawn from his collection of over one million objects from across the world and through many centuries, this unique space is designed to promote new and creative...
The Wellcome Collection Study Visits
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Examining the Value of Teaching Sensitive Matters in History
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 14, Number 2 – Spring/Summer 2017
ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
Driven by the overarching objective of promoting reconciliation through education, this paper explores the impact of history teaching on youth identity and ethnic relations in Sri Lanka. Building on the arguments of scholars the...
Examining the Value of Teaching Sensitive Matters in History
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Polychronicon 142: 'instructive reversals' - (re)interpreting the 1857 events in Northern India
Teaching History feature
The dramatic, chaotic and violent events that took place in Northern India in 1857/8 have been interpreted in many ways, as, for example, the ‘Indian Mutiny', the ‘Sepoy War' and the ‘First Indian War of Independence'. The tales that have been told about these events have been profoundly shaped, however,...
Polychronicon 142: 'instructive reversals' - (re)interpreting the 1857 events in Northern India
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Communicating about the past: Resource G
Article
James Woodcock, 'Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their causal reasoning' in Teaching History 119: Language issue (June, 2005)
In this subtle article, James Woodcock experiments with introducing new vocabulary to a mixed-ability year 10 class working towards the enquiry question '"Hitler was not to...
Communicating about the past: Resource G
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Are historical thinking skills important to history teachers?
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research IJHLTR, Volume 14, Number 2 – Spring/Summer 2017
ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
This article presents some findings of a qualitative interview study with 42 Austrian history teachers, conducted in the framework of an on-going three-year research project (2015–2018) funded by the Austrian Science Fund. The study...
Are historical thinking skills important to history teachers?
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... medieval science and medicine?
Teaching History feature
The phrase ‘medieval science’ may seem nonsensical. ‘How can... a synonym for “backward”,’ the editors of The Cambridge History of Science Volume 2 ask rhetorically, ‘modify a noun that signifies the best available knowledge from the natural world?’ To answer their question, we must rethink our assumptions, both about the...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... medieval science and medicine?
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Triumphs Show 105: Year 9s respond directly to 9/11
Teaching History feature
Caroline Godsell describes the reactions and concerns of two Year 9 classes after the 9/11 attack.
Triumphs Show 105: Year 9s respond directly to 9/11
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Enrichment Opportunities
Briefing Pack
Background
History can be used to enrich students' experience of education in many ways. Everything has a history and links can be made with, and support given to most other subjects. Opportunities can be provided to classes, whole year groups, across year groups, or to individuals. Enrichment can be as...
Enrichment Opportunities
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Time and Place; Using a Local Historical Site with Key Stage 2 and 3
Time and Place
English Heritage and the Historical Association have teamed up to provide this great new CPD guide to getting the most out of local historical sites with your classes. This easy to follow unit provides the basis for an entire unit of local study using the built heritage around you. Examples...
Time and Place; Using a Local Historical Site with Key Stage 2 and 3
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New Treatments of Familiar Topics
National Curriculum 2016
Comparision of new GCSE Specifications Treatment of Familiar Topics If you, like many other departments are beginning to ask the questions that will determine which of the new history GCSE specifications your department will choose, one consideration may well be looking at the retention of familiar topics that you already...
New Treatments of Familiar Topics
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Triumphs Show 101: enthusing Year 8 about Oliver Cromwell
Teaching History article
Heather Scott explains how a two week written project on Oliver Cromwell motivated and enthused a Year 8 class.
Triumphs Show 101: enthusing Year 8 about Oliver Cromwell
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Triumphs Show 111: Recreating 1930s Europe with the help of Year 9
Teaching History feature
Sally Evans demonstrates how constructing a map of Europe can enhance pupils' understandings on the causations of World War Two.
Triumphs Show 111: Recreating 1930s Europe with the help of Year 9
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Triumphs Show 148.2: using pupil dialogue to encourage engagement with sources
Teaching History feature
Using pupil dialogue to encourage sophisticated engagement with source material - even at GCSE!
Frustrated by the mechanistic approach that their pupils were using when working with historical sources, Tim Jenner and Paul Nightingale sought to experiment with a method of teaching sources which eschewed practice source questions in favour...
Triumphs Show 148.2: using pupil dialogue to encourage engagement with sources
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Uncovering the hidden histories: black and Asian people in the two world wars
Teaching History Article
The stories we tell in history are often stories about ourselves. This can lead to tremendous distortion. Rupert Gaze was shocked when a young black student told him that there was no point in his studying the Second World War because it had nothing to do with him or his...
Uncovering the hidden histories: black and Asian people in the two world wars
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Key Stage 2-3 History Transition Project Final Report
Final Report
The project was steered and edited on behalf of the Historical Association by Andrew Wrenn, General Adviser for History, Cambridgeshire Advisory Service.
It was funded by the Innovation Unit of the Department for Education and Skills.
Key Stage 2-3 History Transition Project Final Report
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Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
Article
Two-and-a-half million men from undivided India served the British during the Second World War. Their experiences are little remembered today, neither in the West where a Euro/US-centric memory of the war dominates, nor in South Asia, which privileges nationalist histories of independence from the British Empire. What was it like...
Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
