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The wheels (and horses…) on the bus
Primary History article
A theme in the Early Years will have many cross-curricular links, encompassing many of the different areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework. The focus for this article is on historical elements of Understanding the World; however there will be some cross-over into other areas of...
The wheels (and horses…) on the bus
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Think Bubble 60: Writing from experience
Primary History article
The business of ‘experiencing' history is in as healthy state as it is possible to imagine. In a recent straw poll of primary GTP trainees in the Oxford-Bucks partnership over 80% cited drama, role play or similar inter-active experience as being the most memorable feature of learning history in the...
Think Bubble 60: Writing from experience
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Remembering and sharing an enthusiasm for history
Teacher's family honour his memory with a wonderful gift to support the HA Quality Mark
The role that many teachers carry out without realising is as an advocate for their subject, sharing their enthusiasm for learning with children day after day and year after year. The majority of those teachers do not have plaques put up for them or memorials in the town square, but...
Remembering and sharing an enthusiasm for history
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HA Awards Evening 2019
17th July 2019
On a hot afternoon in July key figures of the history world came together to celebrate history in all its diversity. Throughout the year, across the UK individuals with a passion for history work to educate, inform, entertain and excite those around them about the past. The Historical Association awards...
HA Awards Evening 2019
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Helping Year 8 to understand historians’ narrative decision-making
Teaching History article
While previous work on historical interpretations has focused students’ attention on the particular questions that historians have been asking or the context in which they have been posing those questions, less attention has been paid to the process of historical narration itself – the decisions that are made in telling...
Helping Year 8 to understand historians’ narrative decision-making
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Making learning drive assessment: Joan of Arc - saint, witch or warrior?
Teaching History article
Andrew Wrenn describes his work with Barry Williams and the teachers of the history department at Ailwyn School (11-14 comprehensive), Ramsey in Cambridgeshire. Devoting equal attention to the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of history assessment, he shows how this group of teachers developed a fresh approach to assessment out of...
Making learning drive assessment: Joan of Arc - saint, witch or warrior?
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Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
Journal article
History teachers have frequently made recourse to character cards as a device to help young people, each assigned specific roles, to understand how different kinds of people responded in different ways to particular situations in the past.
Edward FitzGerald builds on this tradition, demonstrating the value of using rich historical...
Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
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Move Me On 167: Frames of reference
Teaching History feature
This feature is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development.
This issue’s problem: Eleanor Franks doesn’t really understand her students’ frames of reference and the difficulties that many of them have in making sense of the particular historical phenomena she is teaching them about.
Eleanor Franks,...
Move Me On 167: Frames of reference
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My Favourite History Place - Poperinge
Historian feature
Poperinge is a cheerful place. It is a cheerfulness which defies its location yet resonates with its history. It is a small town just ten kilometres west of Ypres and all around is the debris and memorabilia of slaughter. Yet somehow Poperinge is a cheerful place. It is a community...
My Favourite History Place - Poperinge
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Teaching History 166: The Moral Maze
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article) 03 HA Secondary News 04 HA Update
08 Putting Catlin in his place? Helping Year 9 to problematize narratives of the American West – Jess Landy (Read article) 16 Cunning Plan: Developing an enquiry on the First Crusade – Rachel Foster and Kath Goudie (Read article)
20 Active...
Teaching History 166: The Moral Maze
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Teaching pre-history outside the classroom
Primary History article
From a visit to a local museum or heritage site, to using bushcraft skills to give pupils first-hand experience of what it might have been like to live in ancient times, teaching prehistory outside the classroom can really give this area of the curriculum the wow factor. The inclusion of...
Teaching pre-history outside the classroom
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Secondary Committee biographies
Information
Find out more about the HA's committees here
Sally Burnham (committee chair)
Sally is a history teacher in a school in Lincolnshire and also works one day a week at the University of Nottingham on the History PGCE. Sally has been a Head of Department and is now a Lead...
Secondary Committee biographies
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ICT and Local History
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
It is the year 3002 AD. The spaceship hovers over the surface of the earth, locked in to the spot where the Bolham time capsule is buried.
One thousand years ago the fifteen 9 and 10...
ICT and Local History
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Higher Education Committee biographies
HA Committees
Read the Higher Education Committee's remit
Find out more about the HA's committees
Katharine Burn
Katharine Burn is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Oxford, where she teaches on the PGCE History programme and on a range of part-time Masters courses for practising teachers. She is co-editor of the HA’s professional...
Higher Education Committee biographies
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HA Secondary History Survey 2015
Survey Report
*Full Survey Report attached below
1.1 Data on which this report is based
This survey was conducted during the summer term 2015. Responses were received from 455 history teachers working in a wide range of different contexts, including sixth form and tertiary colleges. The rapid expansion of the academies programme...
HA Secondary History Survey 2015
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Planning for local history
Article
Editorial comment: Barbara writes from the viewpoint of a classroom teacher facing the challenge of ‘Doing local history' for the first time.
Planning for local history
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A Local History Toolkit
Article
IntroductionIn this short paper you will discover some of the tools for ‘doing' local history. They are based on where I live: you can get similar types of sources from where you live, work or teach. Your main source will be a local library or record office, but there is...
A Local History Toolkit
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Film Series: Active Learning & History
Multipage Article
Active learning strategies are engaging but, far more importantly, they make history learning memorable, they encourage resilience and independence, and they are an excellent way to make complex history accessible for all. When used with clear purpose and with knowledge of specific students' needs, they are a tried and tested...
Film Series: Active Learning & History
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‘If you had told me before that these students were Russians, I would not have believed it’
Teaching History article
Bjorn Wansink and his co-authors have aligned their teaching of a recent and controversial historical issue – the Cold War – in the light of a contemporary incident.
This article demonstrates a means of ensuring that students understand that different cultures’ views of their shared past are nuanced, rather than monolithic – a different concept in philosophy as well as in...
‘If you had told me before that these students were Russians, I would not have believed it’
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Nurturing aspirations for Oxbridge
Teaching History article
An exploration of the impact of university preparation classes on sixth-form historians
Frustrated by the low numbers of students from her comprehensive state school who expressed any interest in applying to Oxford or Cambridge to study history, Lucy Hemsley set out to explore ways in which she might both inspire...
Nurturing aspirations for Oxbridge
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Tackling racism: a continuing dialogue
10th June 2020
Recent events in the UK and the USA have once more raised the issue of racism to the top of the news agenda, providing us all with an opportunity to reflect on the type of society we want to live in and that we want to create. Racism has deep...
Tackling racism: a continuing dialogue
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Polychronicon 135: Post-modern Holocaust Historiography
Teaching History feature
The field of Holocaust studies has been hit by an intellectual earthquake whose precise magnitude and long-term consequences cannot be ascertained at this stage. In 2007 Saul Friedländer published The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945. The book has been rightly celebrated as the first victim-centred synthetic history...
Polychronicon 135: Post-modern Holocaust Historiography
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Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
Podcast Series
Controversial History formed the focus of the Historical Association’s report, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19 (TEACH). Published in 2007, it offered teachers invaluable guidance for teaching historical topics that can stir emotion and controversy. However, the authors noted how the nature of the sensitivity can be affected by ‘time, geography and...
Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
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How We Used to Sleep
School Resources
Want to take a fresh look at medicine through time with your students?
If so, you might be interested in teaching them about sleep’s history in the Renaissance. By focusing on sleep – something that we all do and have an opinion on – students can be introduced to changing...
How We Used to Sleep
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Why History? Why Me?
Student Guides
What is History?
History, the study of the past, is all around us; we are continually making history through our thoughts, words and actions. History is personal and global; it is everyday life and momentous occasions. History is about people.
Through our study of the past, we can understand how...
Why History? Why Me?
