Britain & Ireland 1901-present

War and conflict, technology, illness and medicine and the battle for civil and national rights have all been key elements of the 20th century through to today, thus, all of those themes and many more are explored in this section. Underpinning many of these articles and included here are articles exploring pedagogical issues, managing knowledge and transferring knowledge. Read more

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  • England Arise! The General Election of 1945

    Article

    ‘The past week will live in history for two things’, announced the Sunday Times of 29 July 1945, ‘first the return of a Labour majority to Parliament and the end of Churchill's great war Premiership.’ Most other newspapers concurred. The Daily Mirror, of 27 July, proclaimed that the 1945 general election...

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  • Polychronicon 119: The Second World War and popular culture

    Article

    Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' investigates World War...

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  • Lloyd George & Gladstone

    Article

    Lloyd George, who died sixty years ago on 26 March 1945, grew up and began his Parliamentary career in Queen Victoria's reign. In taking up a major Welsh issue, disestablishment of the Church of Wales, he memorably clashed with William Ewart Gladstone, perhaps the greatest of all Liberal Prime Ministers....

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  • Polychronicon 117: interpretations of Douglas Haig

    Article

    Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its own age. Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' considers the historical...

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  • 'Please send socks': How much can Reg Wilkes tell us about the Great War?

    Article

    This was an opportunity all good historians dream about. A large box crammed with artefacts about a soldier who fought in the First World War, just begging to be read, studied, sorted and organised. Being faced with such a wealth of uncatalogued primary evidence could have proved daunting enough without...

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  • Cunning Plan 100: teaching the First World War in Year 9

    Article

    History teacher and head of department stand outside noisy Year 9 class. Bombs (paper ones) fly everywhere; in corner of room mutiny is being discussed ... many pupils are refusing to follow their leader's last minute orders - they will not be opting for history! The war of attrition (excessive...

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  • Practical classroom approaches to the iconography of Irish history or: how far back do we really have to go?

    Article

    Ben Walsh presents a structured practical activity for teaching pupils about Northern Ireland through the use of murals. The activity can be carried out in Year 9 as part of a study on the twentieth-century world, or as part of a GCSE course. He stresses the importance of an informed...

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  • Mentioning the War: does studying World War Two make any difference to pupils' sense of British achievement and identity?

    Article

    All of this edition is based on the assumption that the teaching of history can have a significant impact upon the values, views and attitudes of our pupils. But how much impact does it have and of what type? And do we ever examine that impact in order to rethink...

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  • Pride and delight: motivating pupils through poetic writing about the First World War

    Article

    This project emerged from team-teaching with history teachers in history lessons. Gill Minikin draws upon her expertise as an English teacher to help pupils become excited by the challenge of ‘squeezing language' into poems. History teachers often ask pupils to write poems but they do not necessarily draw upon all...

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