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Primary History summer resource 2026: Non-fiction in the history classroom
Primary member resource
‘Print reading matters’: this is one of the conclusions of the National Literacy Trust (NLT) report. Research has shown that print reading is still central to most children’s reading experiences, especially within school. It also shows that confidence and strong reading skills in print reading underpin effective reading across all formats. Those who...
Primary History summer resource 2026: Non-fiction in the history classroom
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The Historian 42
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles
3 Feature: The British Empire and the Peace Conferences 1919-1923 - Michael Dockrill
9 Update: Taking Stock of Crime - Clive Emsley
13 Biography: When the Kissing had to Stop: Passion in the Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft - Susan Alendus
17 Local History: The VCH: Past, Present and Future - Kate Tiller...
The Historian 42
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Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
HA Conference 2026 keynote lecture
For the last two and a half centuries, the USA has been shaped by a remarkable sense of its own unique place in world history, yet consumed by never-ending battles over what this means. 250 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States appears to be at...
Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
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Teaching History 204: Crossing Boundaries
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
03 Editorial (Read article)
04 HA Secondary News
06 HA Update
08 Bowie knives, sugar and abolitionists: how hidden local histories and geographies can be used to overcome imperial amnesia – Mark Cottingham, Christine Winter and Katie Dennis (Read article)
18 The ‘Super’ Saxons and the ‘Nasty’ Normans: an argument...
Teaching History 204: Crossing Boundaries
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Cunning Plan… for using Lego to aid disciplinary understanding
Teaching History feature
The idea that history is constructed can be a difficult concept for pupils to grasp, yet it is foundational to disciplinary understanding and crucial if pupils are to understand both the relevance of history and the responsibility of the historian. When asked about the nature of history, many of my...
Cunning Plan… for using Lego to aid disciplinary understanding
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My Favourite History Place: Swarkestone Bridge
Historian feature
Trevor James reveals his continued fascination with this major Midland scheduled monument.
Almost 40 years ago, my role as a Nottingham University extra-mural tutor took me to Melbourne in Derbyshire. For the first few weeks I followed a cross-country route to Melbourne, via Burton-upon-Trent, Woodville and Hartshorne, but, on a dark November...
My Favourite History Place: Swarkestone Bridge
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Planning a history unit of work from scratch
Primary History article
In this article, Rachel wrestles with one of the greatest challenges facing teachers. With the starting point maybe no more than a title or mass of content, how do you begin the process of formulating an exciting and worthwhile teaching programme? It aims to give some tips and ideas to...
Planning a history unit of work from scratch
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Developing a love of history through historical fiction
Primary History article
In this article, Steven Kenyon reminds us of the importance of historical fiction as part of good primary history. He examines its current role and, in this National Year of Reading, identifies a few of the best examples that can enhance the teaching of history, covering EYFS right up to...
Developing a love of history through historical fiction
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Move Me On: Supporting SEND students
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On: Supporting SEND students
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Teaching primary history thematically – why it makes sense
Primary History article
Recognising that most schools deliver history as separate units that are then divided into themes, Nick Mackintosh argues that this means a lack of a narrative thread, which can result in children struggling to analyse it effectively. A thematic history curriculum is much better at developing children’s understanding of chronology,...
Teaching primary history thematically – why it makes sense
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Teaching the Maya in upper Key Stage 2
Primary History article
In this article, Jo identifies a rationale for learning about this civilisation and addresses some of the ways it can be taught, especially with older primary children. It includes a comparative enquiry with Anglo-Saxons. She also highlights how recent research has developed a greater understanding of the Maya and, at...
Teaching the Maya in upper Key Stage 2
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Virtual Branch recording: Crusader Castles
Article
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the crusaders constructed tens of castles across the Middle East, some merely small watchtowers, others massive strongholds or fortress cities - but why did the crusaders place so much importance on fortifications?
Nicholas Morton explores the development of this remarkable phenomenon asking key questions...
Virtual Branch recording: Crusader Castles
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Deaf marriages and sign language recognition
Historian article
In the pre-modern world, the ability to speak and to hear were fundamental to participation in civil society. How, then, could prelingual deaf people survive and thrive? Rosamund Oates, author of the recently published Silent Histories: Deafness in Early Modern England, charts the long struggle for the recognition of sign...
Deaf marriages and sign language recognition
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Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany
Historian article
Throughout history, war has been one of the great producers of disability, and the disabled veteran has often provoked feelings of pride and pity. In this article, Christopher Thomas Goodwin explores the multiple meanings of the disabled soldier in Nazi Germany...
Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany
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On-demand webinar: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understanding
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Session 5: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understandingPresenter: Ailsa Fidler and Simon Lea
AI-driven immersive history is entering our classrooms in ways previously unimaginable. Through interactive simulations, image and video generation and storytelling, students will be able to explore historical events and...
On-demand webinar: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understanding
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In conversation with David Turner
Historian feature
Disabled people have always been present in Britain’s past. Yet they have often appeared only at the edge of historical narratives: as recipients of charity, as objects of medical attention, as casualties of war or work, or as figures in stories told by institutions rather than by themselves. In Disability:...
In conversation with David Turner
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Teaching History 185: Out now
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
Read Teaching History 185: Missing stories
In their prologue to What is History Now? (published earlier this year to mark the 60th anniversary of E.H. Carr’s seminal work), Helen Carr and Susannah Lipscomb both admit to owning a ruler of rulers: a list of monarchs of Britain from the year...
Teaching History 185: Out now
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Virtual Branch Recording: Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War
Article
Jane Rogoyska tells the story of the Hôtel Lutetia, the only ‘grand’ hotel on the city’s bohemian Left Bank, serving as a meeting place for artists, musicians and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived in one of its rooms, Picasso and Matisse were regular guests. But...
Virtual Branch Recording: Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War
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Developing historical understanding across all areas of the EYFS framework
Primary History article
Children in nursery and reception classes do not, of course, learn history. They meet the subject for the first time when they start Year 1. However, what children learn – and how they learn – in EYFS is important for preparing them to learn history. This goes beyond building knowledge...
Developing historical understanding across all areas of the EYFS framework
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On-demand webinar: Creating an inclusive and equitable history curriculum
Webinar series: Effective practice in the history classroom: responding to the new Ofsted framework
Webinar series: Effective practice in the history classroom: responding to the new Ofsted framework
Session 3: Creating an inclusive and equitable history curriculum
Key topics:
Attending to the scope of a history curriculum
Evidencing inclusive practice through curriculum design and classroom culture
Story as a tool for inclusion
This session focuses...
On-demand webinar: Creating an inclusive and equitable history curriculum
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On-demand webinar: From implementation to impact: evidencing learning and progress in history
Webinar series: Effective practice in the history classroom: responding to the new Ofsted framework
Webinar series: Effective practice in the history classroom: responding to the new Ofsted framework
Session 2: From implementation to impact: evidencing learning and progress in history
Key topics:
Defining and identifying 'impact' in the history classroom
Assessing progression in substantive and disciplinary knowledge (the role of formative and summative assessment)
This...
On-demand webinar: From implementation to impact: evidencing learning and progress in history
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Making substantive concepts (do the) work
Teaching History article
Several years back, Alistair Dickins and Tommy-James Alexander realised they wanted to incorporate explicit consideration of substantive concepts into their Key Stage 3 teaching, to enable students to make sense of and order information about the past and to offer students a usable language that would support their historical reasoning. In reality,...
Making substantive concepts (do the) work
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Lesson sequence: Muslim Tommies - taster lesson
Article
This series of lessons has been designed to teach students something of the role of Muslim soldiers in the British Army in the First World War. By working with what remains of the War and how the Muslim contribution has been remembered, students will learn that the narrative is more...
Lesson sequence: Muslim Tommies - taster lesson
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Lesson sequence: Muslim Tommies
Lesson sequences
The first lesson of this sequence is available free to all secondary members here.
This series of lessons has been designed to teach students something of the role of Muslim soldiers in the British Army in the First World War. By working with what remains of the War and how the Muslim contribution...
Lesson sequence: Muslim Tommies
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Recorded webinar: Deafness in early modern England
Article
In this webinar, Professor Rosamund Oates shares her research for her new book Silent Histories: Deafness in Early Modern England (2026). Professor Oates is an expert in the historical cultures of early modern England and is passionate about exploring previously unknown stories of deaf and disabled people, using rigorous scholarly...
Recorded webinar: Deafness in early modern England
