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Using the back cover image: painted wooden police truncheon
Primary History feature
This painted wooden police truncheon dates from the reign of King William IV (1830–37). It is decorated with a crown and the letters WIVR, standing for King William IV. For some pupils, its function may be obvious, for others it may be mistaken for a rounders or baseball bat, or...
Using the back cover image: painted wooden police truncheon
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George Eliot and Warwickshire history
Historian article
David Paterson explains how George Eliot’s vivid memory of her childhood in north Warwickshire is revealed through her novels.
George Eliot, born 200 years ago this year, is one of our greatest novelists, born and brought up in Warwickshire, a county in which she spent the first 30 years of...
George Eliot and Warwickshire history
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Film: Unpicking the Ofsted subject report for history
Rich Encounters With the Past
In this webinar, history teachers and consultants Stuart Tiffany and Kerry Somers and Senior lecturer in primary education at Liverpool John Moore's University, Ailsa Fidler discuss the July 2023 history subject report with Ofsted National Lead for history, Tim Jenner.
In the course of the webinar discussion, the key messages...
Film: Unpicking the Ofsted subject report for history
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Sudan Holy Mountain: Jebel Barkal and its Temples
Guide Book
This guide book was produced by Timothy Kendall and El-Hassan Ahmed Mohamed (Co-Directors NCAM Archaeological Mission at Jebel Barkal) and has been published on our website by their kind permission (© 2022 Timothy Kendall and El-Hassan Ahmed Mohamed) to support our podcast that examines the history of Ancient Nubia and the Kushite...
Sudan Holy Mountain: Jebel Barkal and its Temples
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How diverse is your history curriculum?
Article
The past was full of diverse people and our students are entitled to learn about this diverse past. History lessons should enable students to see their connection to the past and to understand the world today. Here are a list of questions for history teachers to use to support a...
How diverse is your history curriculum?
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Virtual Branch recording: Tudor Liveliness?
Discovering Vivid Art in Post-Reformation England
In Tudor England, artworks were often described as ‘lively’. What did this mean in a culture where naturalism was an alien concept? And in a time of religious upheaval, when the misuse of images might lure the soul to hell, how could liveliness be a good thing?
In this talk...
Virtual Branch recording: Tudor Liveliness?
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Teaching History 193: Mediating History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
03 Editorial (read article - open access)
04 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
08 Laughing muppets, lost memories and lethal mutations: rescuing assessment from ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’ – Christine Counsell (Read article)
26 ‘If we’ve been getting their name wrong, how else have they been misrepresented?’: Year 7 challenge stereotypes about the Mexica –...
Teaching History 193: Mediating History
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Ancient Greek Ideas: Science
Lesson Plan
Cross-curricular History and Science in the Literacy Hour
*(These resources are attached below)
Imagining what Greek science and a Greek science lesson at KS2 would be like
With the children raising questions and examining Ancient Greek ideas about our origins, this lesson has the potential to range widely and be...
Ancient Greek Ideas: Science
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Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Diana Laffin shares her findings on an action research project into the use of remote voting systems in the AS and A2 classroom. She was particularly interested in examining the impact of such devices on...
Using remote voting to involve everyone in classroom thinking at AS and A2
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Virtual Branch Recording: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife
Lives of medieval women
What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives?
Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four who did: Marie de France,...
Virtual Branch Recording: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife
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Exploring the history of our place with very young children
Primary History article
Karin Doull considers how we can develop historical thinking in the Early Years in this article about locality and place. Karin offers helpful suggestions for developing historical vocabulary and assessing understanding.
How can we seek to encourage Foundation Stage children to engage with historical thinking and processes? What appears to...
Exploring the history of our place with very young children
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Britain’s Jews in the First World War
Book review
Britain’s Jews in the First World War, Paula Kitching, Amberley, 2019, 286p, £14-99. ISBN 978-1-4456-6320-3
The title of this book does not fully convey the importance of its contents and focus. It provides a variety of perspectives on the Jewish involvement in the British war effort in the Great War....
Britain’s Jews in the First World War
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What’s important about...? Sources and evidence
Primary History article
In this timely article, Ailsa Fidler and Chris Russell explore the use of sources and evidence in the teaching of primary history. Referring to Ofsted’s history subject report (July 2023), Ailsa and Chris explore how sources can be used effectively in the classroom and how children’s understanding of the role...
What’s important about...? Sources and evidence
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Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom
The Black Crown
How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon's invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe. Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in...
Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom
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Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans
Virtual Branch Film
How did descendants of Viking marauders come to dominate Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land and the Middle East?
In this Virtual Branch talk Levi Roach, author of Empires of the Normans, tells a tale of ambitious adventures...
Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans
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How the Quality Mark for history can support you as a subject leader
Article
Whether you have been a history subject lead for a while or are new to the role, the HA’s Quality Mark (QM) for Primary History can help to support you in developing the subject in your school.
In this guide experienced Quality Mark assessor and primary educator Sue Temple outlines...
How the Quality Mark for history can support you as a subject leader
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Cambridge Branch Programme
Article
Cambridge Branch Programme 2025
Enquiries to Branch President Dr Sean Lang sf_lang@hotmail.com
Awaiting Programme for 2025-6
Cambridge Branch Programme
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Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
Historian article
On 28 June 1098, the forces of the First Crusade marched out from the great north Syrian city of Antioch to do battle with Karbugha, the Muslim ruler of Mosul. The odds were not in their favour: not only was the Muslim army vastly superior in size, but the crusaders had...
Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
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Animals who help us: teaching past and present in EYFS
Primary History article
Remembrance Day is a useful time to explore with EYFS pupils the people who help us. But of course animals also play a part in human conflicts. This article explores animals who have helped us in wartime now and in the past. The article includes useful teaching ideas and picture...
Animals who help us: teaching past and present in EYFS
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Virtual Branch Recording: The Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949
Diaries and Personal Experiences
In this talk Professor Henrietta Harrison uses diary records to think about the experience of living through the revolution in China in 1949, focussing on what it meant to Chinese people, how they learned about its practices and ideology, and how this changed their lives - whether they were radical intellectuals returning...
Virtual Branch Recording: The Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949
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Recorded Webinar: Teaching Jewish histories
Article
Where Jews appear on school curricula, they tend to appear as victims, particularly in the context of the Nazi genocide. The vibrant diversity of Jewish life in preceding centuries is underexplored, and students are given little context for understanding the growth of antisemitism.
This webinar delves into this vibrant richness...
Recorded Webinar: Teaching Jewish histories
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The Historian 158: Music
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Reviews
5 Editorial (Read article - open access)
6 ‘Since singing is so good a thing’: William Byrd on the benefits of singing – Katharine Butler (Read article)
11 Letters
12 A history of Choral Evensong: the birth of an English tradition – Tom Coxhead (Read article)
17 Reviews
18 Building new futures by rewriting the past:...
The Historian 158: Music
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Virtual Branch Recording: Shylock's Venice
The remarkable history of Venice’s Jews and the Ghetto
This is the story of the Venice Ghetto, the corner of the city where Jews were exiled; free to walk the streets by day, locked behind gates and walls at night. Yet, gates and walls notwithstanding, from its establishment in 1516 until the fall of Venice in 1798, the ghetto...
Virtual Branch Recording: Shylock's Venice
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Film: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire
Age of Emergency
In the 1950s, Britain fought a series of brutal wars against insurgents in the colonies of Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus. How did people at home experience these wars? How did they learn about the use of torture and other unsettling tactics? And how did they respond to this knowledge?
In...
Film: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire
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New online records shed light on Suffrage movement
Free to search until International Women's Day
New online records reveal that “militant” Suffragettes were largely well educated, in their 30s and born in the South East
Home Office & police files detail those on the front lines of the suffrage movement
Records reveal that most “militant” suffragettes were well educated, in their 30s and born in...
New online records shed light on Suffrage movement
