The government has reformed GCSE qualifications in England to make them more demanding. You can find out more about the new GCSEs here or by watching this short video. By 2020, all GCSEs in England will be graded using numbers instead of letters. The new grading scale runs from 9 to...

The Maya was one of the world’s greatest ancient civilisations, and its apparently sudden decline in the 9th century AD has long been a subject for historical debate.   Now scientists have found evidence which appears to confirm the theory that the large-scale abandonment of Maya city states was precipitated by a massive drought...

Access Primary History 79 (Free to HA Primary members) As the academic year draws to a close I find myself reflecting on the trials and tribulations, successes and regrets of the past 12 months. This is now the end of my third year at this school and it has felt...

At the end of a sweltering June the Historical Association gathered in London for our annual awards evening. Each year this wonderful event is an opportunity to celebrate some of the people that make history happen across the country on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. For 2018 as the...

A fascinating collection of more than 4,000 photographs uncovered in the Historic England Archive is giving up its secrets after more than 70 years and is now accessible to the public.  Staff at Historic England’s Archive in Swindon recently discovered 4,050 black and white photographic prints taken by the Topical...

Are you teaching 20th-century history in the spring term? Do you want to refresh your teaching of the campaign for women’s rights and equal representation? Don’t forget to register for the Suffrage Resources website, a free resource developed specifically for schools to help teachers and students explore the rich history of...

Access Teaching History 171 here (Free to HA Secondary members) Editorial: Knowledge In recent years, lively debates about the role of knowledge and especially about pedagogies for ensuring its secure acquisition have raged across England’s educational landscape. Much of this has arisen from a new interest, by teachers, in the...

The Oral History Society's Schools and Young People Group has developed A Guide to Oral History for Schools and Youth Groups. This important set of resources is designed to support teachers and anyone working with young people on oral history projects. Oral history is a living history of everyone’s unique life experiences, and so is...

Jewish-German refugee Henry Wuga escaped Nazi Germany at 15 years old, but was arrested and falsely accused of espionage. The little-known history of Warth Mills WWII internment camp in Bury, Greater Manchester, is set to be revealed next week (June 2018) with the launch of a commemorative events programme and...

Alas it is gone (possibly pursued by a bear or two). If you weren’t in Stratford-upon-Avon on the weekend of 18-19 May then you missed a corker. If you were there, please let us know what you thought by filling out our short HA conference evaluation form.  Day 1: Civil liberties, Cymbeline... and a lot...

‘Away from the Western Front’ has launched two national projects and is offering everyone a chance to make a contribution to this First World War centenary commemoration. A National Music project and a Creative Writing Competition are part of the Heritage Lottery funded First World War 'Away from the Western...

For this edition of The Historian, we decided to move away from a subject theme and instead to pay tribute to the HA's branches. These provide an opportunity for anyone with a love of history to get together, to learn and to discuss a very wide range of fascinating topics,...

It’s time to focus on the immediate world around us – yes, it’s Local History Month 2018. Everyone lives in an area of rich local heritage, even if they don’t know it yet. May is the time to investigate, explore and discover the history of the world immediately around you....

The Historical Association and the Institute of Physics have teamed up to deliver an exciting project for school and youth groups as part of the Royal Air Force centenary celebrations. The RAF100 Schools Project uniquely uses the professional understanding of historians and physicists working in education to create an active...

Historians have reconstructed what Windsor Castle originally looked like when it was built by William the Conqueror in 1071 to deter Anglo-Saxon rebels. Researchers have used a series of archaeological discoveries made over recent decades to determine the original size and construction of Britain’s largest medieval fortress. The reconstruction of that first Windsor...

Many years ago a teacher recounted to me a lesson they had taught ostensibly about the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381.* The ‘extension’ task was to make a drawing that would reflect what had been learnt. One child had a less than tenuous grasp of what had been taught and not...

Historians have put forward a new theory to solve a mystery that has long baffled experts – why Stonehenge’s Neolithic builders went to the great effort of bringing some of its huge stones from 155 miles away in south-west Wales. "In contemporary Western culture, we are always striving to make...

The Syriac Galen Palimpsest is a fascinating and (until now) frustrating historical manuscript. For several years it has been known to contain traces of a 6th-century translation of a treatise ‘On simple drugs’ by the renowned early physician Galen. However, this original text had been erased and overwritten with psalms in the 11th century, and despite...

Access Teaching History 170 (Free to HA Secondary Members) Editorial: Historians When we do history we are not alone. Even sitting in the most obscure corner of the top floor of the library, surrounded only by books, we are in the presence of other historians. We locate our arguments among theirs,...

As you may well be aware, Ofsted has been carrying out research into the breadth and coherence of the curriculum offered to all young people. In deciding to conduct this investigation, the Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman acknowledged that Ofsted ought to consider its own role in what has been happening...