Transition KS2-KS3

This section contains examples of projects and advice on securing continuity and progression across the primary-secondary divide.  This is the responsibility of both primary and secondary school history teachers.  Pupils need to be ready, by the end of Year 6, for history in Year 7, and courses for Year 7 need to build properly on the primary experience. This is extremely challenging because secondary school history teachers have and to take into account (currently very diverse) primary school starting points.  Read more

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  • Telling and suggesting in the Conwy Valley

    Article

    Thelma Wiltshire applies a ‘telling' and ‘suggesting' strategy to an enquiry involving an historical site. Getting beyond more simplistic approaches to ‘fact' and ‘opinion', she describes how a pack of curriculum materials was designed to give pupils a precise language to talk about layers of certainty and uncertainty in their...

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  • The Evacuee Letter Exchange Project: using audience-centred writing to improve progression from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3

    Article

    Jenny Parsons' work in primary-secondary liaison in history is nationally acclaimed. She is often asked to share her department's practice at courses and conferences. Readers of Teaching History are already familiar with her work in another area: in the ‘Triumphs Show' of Teaching History 93 (the ICT edition in November...

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  • The New Elizabethans

    Multipage Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on life in Britain at the 1953 coronation and how people at the time looked back to the reign of Elizabeth I. This is one a set of Year 6 schemes of work arising from the 2005 KS2-KS3 History Transitions Project.

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  • Time and Place; Using a Local Historical Site with Key Stage 2 and 3

    Multipage Article

    English Heritage and the Historical Association have teamed up to provide this great new CPD guide to getting the most out of local historical sites with your classes. This easy to follow unit provides the basis for an entire unit of local study using the built heritage around you. Examples...

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  • Time and chronology: conjoined twins or distant cousins?

    Article

    Weaknesses in pupils' grasp of historical chronology are a commonplace in popular discussion of the state of history education. However, as Blow, Lee and Shemilt argue, although undoubtedly necessary and fundamental, mastery of chronological conventions is not sufficient: the difficulties that pupils experience when learning history are conceptual, as much...

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  • Using Folktales, Myths and Legends

    Article

    This resource was commissioned by the Historical Association to offer teachers an entry point into the new primary History curriculum using stories: folktales, myths and legends from the civilisations, communities and cultures of the statutory programmes of study. In this resource, pupils are encouraged to recall and retell stories orally,...

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  • Walter Tull: Sport, War and Challenging Adversity

    Article

    Schemes of work and resource packs  Produced by the Northamptonshire Black History Association and originally published in 2008, these packs comprise a teachers' resource book and a schemes of work booklet of 10 activities for teachers to use in the classroom. The resource book contains a description of how to use this resource,...

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  • Was Boudicca Britain's first hero?

    Multipage Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on Queen Boudicca. While factual knowledge about her life and the Roman occupation are an essential component of the unit, the main focus is on contrasting interpretations of Boudicca over time and exploration of the reasons behind her...

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  • Working with Boudicca texts - contemporary, juvenile and scholarly

    Article

    Please note: this article was written before the the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may now be outdated. Robert Guyver describes a model for teaching Boudicca’s rebellion to pupils aged 7 to 13. Drawing on the tradition of critical source evaluation, he nonetheless shuns aspects of that tradition in favour of...

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  • Year 7 explore the story of a London street

    Article

    One street, twenty children and the experience of a changing town: Year 7 explore the story of a London street Michael Wood and others have recently drawn attention to the ways in which big stories can be told through local histories. Hughes and De Silva report a teaching unit through...

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