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New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
Teaching History feature: the quick guide to the no-quick-fix
Was your diet of school history mostly modern? Are you more comfortable debating the industrial revolution than the feudal revolution? And do you now find yourself teaching more medieval history, particularly at GCSE and A-level? Recent changes to the examination specifications in England have made the medieval mainstream, and as...
New, Novice or Nervous? 171: Teaching Medieval History
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Touching, feeling, smelling, and sensing history through objects
Teaching History article
Lots has been written in recent years about how history teachers can bring academic scholarship into the classroom. This article takes this interest in academic practice a step further, examining how pupils can engage directly with the kinds of sources to which historians are increasingly turning their attention: the ‘everyday’ objects of ordinary life. Building on...
Touching, feeling, smelling, and sensing history through objects
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Primary History Summer Resource 2019: Diversity
Primary History resource
This free summer resource for primary members is designed to help primary subject leaders and teachers consider the implications of developing a school policy for teaching of diversity in history. This comprehensive guide provides timely advice and considers questions associated with teaching diversity and provides a rationale for its essential role in providing an understanding...
Primary History Summer Resource 2019: Diversity
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History Abridged: POTUS - President of the United States
Historian article
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
Described as the most powerfully...
History Abridged: POTUS - President of the United States
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Multi-modality and writing history
Primary History article
We all now live in the digital age.
The smart phone, kindle, i-pad and computer mean children are immersed and interact in a digital world of moving, still and spoken images. They are also able to communicate digitally socially: for example, Twitter and Facebook. Social media facilitate social as well...
Multi-modality and writing history
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Active Historical Thinking
Teaching History article
‘Thinking Skills' have been much discussed in England since, at least, the revision of the National Curriculum in 2000 and have recently morphed, with the 2008 revisions to the curriculum, into ‘Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills'. Often, however, such ‘skills' are discussed in abstract and cross-curricular ways, outside the context...
Active Historical Thinking
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Finding the place of substantive knowledge in history
Teaching History article
‘What exactly is parliament?' finding the place of substantive knowledge in history
The relationship between knowledge and literacy is a central concern for all teachers. In his teaching, Palek noted that his students were struggling to understand complex substantive concepts such as ‘parliament' and decided to explore the relationship between students'...
Finding the place of substantive knowledge in history
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Teaching History 175: Listening to Diverse Voices
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article)
03 HA Secondary news
04 HA update
08 Did the Bretons break? Planning increasingly complex ‘causal models’ at Key Stage 3 – Matthew Stanford (Read article)
16 From ‘Great Women’ to an inclusive curriculum: how should women’s history be included at Key Stage 3? – Susanna Boyd (Read...
Teaching History 175: Listening to Diverse Voices
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Incorporating local history into a scheme of work
Key Stages 1-3 (Years 1-9)
This unit is not itself a scheme of work, but instead suggests ways local history might meaningfully be incorporated into a Scheme of Work. It is not meant to be prescriptive, but to suggest ideas, areas and tools that should help teachers make a study of local history meaningful.
See...
Incorporating local history into a scheme of work
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Using a house for your local history study
Primary History article
A house can be an extremely effective focus for learning about the past, giving us insights into changes to domestic and social life. We can explore how different inventions (e.g. electric lighting, washing machines, televisions) have changed the way we live, and we can look at some of the ways...
Using a house for your local history study
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Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Sam Wineburg's work, in particular his groundbreaking Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (2001), has a great deal to teach us about the discipline of history, the nature of historical education, and the specific cognitive framework...
Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking
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Engaging places with KS2
Article
Engaging Pupils: An A Level student describes her experience of collaborative working with Key Stage 2.When the students at Thamesview Vocational Centre found out we were working with the local junior school, Riverview Primary, we were quite surprised. We had been working on the Engaging Places project which was a...
Engaging places with KS2
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TV: modern father of history?
Historian article
Bettany Hughes Norton Medlicott Medal Winner Lecture
In 1991 I travelled to the BBC for a meeting with a senior television producer. It seemed to me that history just wasn't getting a fair crack of the whip. I talked animatedly about the on-screen discoveries that could be made and the...
TV: modern father of history?
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‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
Teaching History article
Many history departments choose to begin their Year 7 curriculum with an introduction to the nature of history and the processes in which historians engage as they develop, refine and substantiate claims about the past. In this article, Adbul Mohamud and Robin Whitburn report on an such an introductory unit, designed with a specific focus on the history...
‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
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Background information: citizenship and history
HITT Resource
Citizenship was introduced as a National Curriculum subject at key stages 3 and 4 in 2002. Prior to that many schools had taught aspects of citizenship as a cross-curricular theme, often in the context of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). Much of the impetus for introducing citizenship as a...
Background information: citizenship and history
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Teacher trainees writing history
Primary History article
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Introduction
I would like to share some Cumbria University Year 4 primary history specialist student's written work with you. These students who are in their final year have just completed their last assignment...
Teacher trainees writing history
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Occult and Witches
Historian article
Occult and Witches: Some Dramatic and Real Practitioners of the Occult in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods
One purpose of this paper is to show a correspondence between real-life Elizabethan and Jacobean practitioners of the occult and the depiction of their theatrical counterparts, with particular reference to perceived differences between,...
Occult and Witches
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Creating confident historical readers at A-level
Teaching History article
How can we help pupils learn to read historically? Gary Howells explores this question by explaining how he builds reading challenges into the course of his pupils' post-16 studies and by describing some of the tasks that pupils are set and the principles that underpin them. Howells argues that over...
Creating confident historical readers at A-level
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2025
The Historical Association Historical Fiction Prize
Entries for this year's competition are now closed. The winners will be posted on this website in September/October. Next year's competition will open at the end of 2025.
Each year we are so impressed by the ever increasing number and standard of entries we receive around such a wide range of...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2025
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Suffrage enquiries: free history and citizenship lesson sequences
History and citizenship lesson sequences for Key Stage 3, GCSE and A-level
Looking for ways to better teach the suffrage campaign and move away from focusing on just a handful of individuals? To accompany our searchable database of suffrage campaigners, we have created a number of free fully-resourced history enquiries and citizenship activities, each featuring a sequence of lessons:
Suffrage enquiries: free history and citizenship lesson sequences
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The death of a hero: Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson
Historian article
Michael Crumplin comments on the injuries and illnesses that Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson suffered during his shortened career. His bold leadership style, much admired by his naval companions, inevitably led to a series of wounds. Using a combination of contemporary accounts and current clinical, anatomical and physiological interpretation, this article...
The death of a hero: Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson
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One of my favourite history places: Eyam
Primary History feature
Imagine……… walking down the street and crossing the road to avoid having to talk to a friend……. declining a friend’s invitation to enter her house…... feeling angry and trapped that you cannot travel away from your home….
Are such feelings familiar to you during the coronavirus crisis? Maybe they are – but I am...
One of my favourite history places: Eyam
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Pull-out posters: Primary History 87
Could you manage old money? and Examples of picture books
‘Twelve pennies make a shilling; twenty shillings make a pound’ - Could you manage old money?
Examples of picture books
Pull-out posters: Primary History 87
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One of my favourite history places: Conwy
Primary History feature
The medieval walled town of Conwy, situated by the River Conwy and surrounded by the stunning and rugged Welsh countryside, is well deserving of its status as a World Heritage Site and is also my favourite history place.
Approach the town from the east side and the first thing you...
One of my favourite history places: Conwy
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In My View: Writing History
Article
First Steps
Writing history comes not at the beginning, but at the end of a process of selection and research. The first step is to choose a subject and develop some questions about it. Then comes the research into secondary and, much more excitingly, primary sources. Finally,the writing takes shape....
In My View: Writing History
