Creative curricular planning With the National Curriculum under review, it seems that more schools are taking a creative approach to planning by delivering the curriculum through a focused theme or topic. This has allowed schools to take more ownership of the curriculum and has helped teachers become more innovative in their...

What do we mean by creativity?In the last few years there has been an emphasis on the ‘creative curriculum', ‘creativity' and ‘creative teaching and learning', but there has not always been a shared understanding of what this means. This article uses the definition from ‘Creativity - find it, promote it'...

During my teaching of history I have been amazed by the asinine questions that children and adults ask about the subject matter. For example, a child once asked, ‘Sir, if Queen Cleopatra hadn't been bitten by the asp would she still be alive today?'. This question suggests that despite comprehensive...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. The introduction of National Curriculum History in England as a statutory subject in 1989/90 faced primary teachers with a major challenge of how to teach a de facto new subject. The Nuffield Foundation funded a curriculum...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. The national history curricula for Northern Ireland, England and Wales have passed through various stages since working groups were set up in England and Wales in 1989. Developments have been distinct, with Northern Ireland having quite...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. In the mid 1990s the Nuffield Foundation funded the development of a primary history curriculum for Yaroslavl in Russia. It was a contemporary curriculum, choosing issues and concepts of central concern to contemporary society and studying their...

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. This article will argue that although history can seem a ‘hard' discipline for young children, it can be made accessible and exciting through telling stories about objects. The article does not contain advice about obtaining objects:...

Planning for historical understanding a conceptual framework: Responding To The Rose Report Through The Lens Of The Cambridge Review. Introduction At last we have Children, Their World, Their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review, (Alexander 2009). This is an independent study funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Trust,...

Towards a new primary curriculum: Cambridge Primary Review Part 1, Past and Present, Part 2, The Future - An editorial response to the Cambridge Primary Review.  Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Introduction The Cambridge Primary Review, director Robin Alexander, is the...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. Trying to explain what pupils at primary school should know and understand about history to help their progress at secondary school is an extremely tricky question to answer (so thanks Jon!). Ultimately there are...

Alf Wilkinson our Professional Development Officer has produced a PowerPoint presentation to enable more effective use of ICT in the primary classroom...

“It’s like they’ve gone up a year!” This was the unprompted observation of a teaching assistant at Buckden Primary School last summer, supporting Giles Fullard, a secondary history teacher from Hinchingbrooke School, near Huntingdon leading a lesson with a year 6 class on “Was Boudicca Britain’s first hero?” The scheme...

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated. The history of primary history in state schools is a chequered one. Until the National Curriculum the quality of history teaching in primary schools depended largely on the enthusiasm and interest of individual teachers. This resulted...

The Historical Association poses a series of questions to the Director of the Primary National Strategy, Kevan Collins.

Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Following the publication of the QCA guide ‘Citizenship and PSHE at KS1 & 2’ (QCA:2000) which identified history as being a suitable vehicle for the teaching of the non-statutory citizenship framework in primary schools, and...

Older readers of the journal may well remember a classic film, Whatever happened to Baby Jane ? This article asks, and attempts to answer, two parallel questions: "Whatever happened to breadth and balance?" and "Whatever happened to history’s place in the primary curriculum?". The two questions (and their answers) are...

The role of the History Team at QCA includes keeping under review the curriculum, assessment and qualifications. We have been involved in consulting on and providing advice to the DfES on the revisions to the National Curriculum, we have worked with the DfES to produce the schemes of work, and...

With the pressure on curriculum time in primary schools, and the need to concentrate on literacy and numeracy, many teachers have recently felt that visits outside the classroom are a luxury. The introduction of Curriculum 2000, though, puts renewed importance on learning history from other sources, including sites and museums.

Curriculum 2000 offers stronger emphasis on making links between Britain and the wider world. This is welcomed but this itself does not guarantee a more multicultural history curriculum. Overall there is probably insufficient stress on the affective side. Sections of the Orders give examples of how history can contribute to...

This section examines ways in which the subject leader can prove an effective manager and co-ordinator. It looks at issues such as the main activities of a subject leader, effective but manageable assessment and how the quality of history in the primary school can be monitored and evaluated.