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Ancient Greeks: The Olympics' War Games - Teaching through Drama
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
When I was a boy the Greek Olympics was one of the perennials of the primary history curriculum, alongside the Battle of Hastings and the execution of Charles I.
I have memories of an old text...
Ancient Greeks: The Olympics' War Games - Teaching through Drama
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Ancient Greece: Birthplace of the Olympics - Teacher Briefing
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: Below is a one-page outline of a wonderful briefing replete with visual and textual sources and teaching ideas from The Cambridge Schools Classics Project (CSC P). The outline below consists of the full introduction...
Ancient Greece: Birthplace of the Olympics - Teacher Briefing
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The British Government's Confidential Files on the United States
Historian article
Unpublished papers in Britain's National Archives at Kew reveal curious undercurrents in Anglo-American relations. After the conclusion of the Boer War, for example, the British Army supposed that the next major conflict would be not with Germany but with the U.S. A memo printed for circulation in July 1904 entitled ‘A...
The British Government's Confidential Files on the United States
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Lord North: The Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon
Classic Pamphlet
In the last weeks of his life Lord North, we are told, expressed anxiety about his place in history - ‘how he stood and would stand in the world'. This, he owned, ‘might be a weakness, but he could not help it'. It was a weakness one suspects that he...
Lord North: The Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon
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The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa
Classic Pamphlet
The dissolution of colonial empires since the Second World War is a major theme of contemporary history, and one which will challenge historians for many years to come. There are still sharp disagreements as to how this change should be described. European scholars tend to use the term ‘decolonization' (at...
The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa
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Polychronicon 112: The Angevin Empire
Teaching History feature
Polychronicon was a fourteenth-century chronicle that brought together much of the knowledge of its ownage. 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 the 'Polychronicon' concentrates on the...
Polychronicon 112: The Angevin Empire
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The Historian 15
The magazine of the Historical Association
3 Feature: The Tudor Princes of Wales, P.R. Roberts
10 Update: Germany 1860-1918, V.R. Berghahn
13 Education Forum: History at 16 to 18, Eric Evans
14 Local History: Some Social History Premises, Norman McCord
18 Personalia: Past Presidents, W. Norton-Medlicott
The Historian 15
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Cunning Plan… for using the story of Eunice Foote to bring environmental history into the curriculum
Teaching History feature
It was during a rainy Tuesday breaktime that I realised why I was so flippant about including environmental history in my curriculum. ‘The climate, you see,’ I said to my colleague Tamsin as I double-boiled the staffroom kettle, ‘can’t challenge you when you don’t include it.’
Kate Hawkey’s book History and the Climate...
Cunning Plan… for using the story of Eunice Foote to bring environmental history into the curriculum
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Beyond the bolt-on: placing local history at the heart of a diverse and decolonial curriculum
Teaching History article
Students’ rapt response to a filmed interview with a former miner now working as part of the school’s premises team convinced Fred Oxby of the power of local stories. This was not simply because they captured students’ attention, nor even because such stories enabled them to see that history was not...
Beyond the bolt-on: placing local history at the heart of a diverse and decolonial curriculum
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Whose past is it anyway? Telling Russian and Soviet history through diverse Jewish voices
Teaching History article
When Alistair Dickins came to teach A-level Russian and Soviet history (1855–1964) he was rather surprised by the very limited references to Jewish history within the exam board specification. His own detailed knowledge in this area (a ‘little side-project’ from his doctorate on the Russian Revolution), led to a revision of the course. This article...
Whose past is it anyway? Telling Russian and Soviet history through diverse Jewish voices
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... schooling and the British Empire
Teaching History feature
The history of schooling and the British Empire encompasses a complex body of literature. Histories of formal education intersect with work on race, class and capitalism and link to adjacent fields such as histories of childhood. A basic contention shared throughout this field, however, is that there was a profound...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... schooling and the British Empire
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Primary History 47: Thinking through history
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
This special edition of Primary History is supported by the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth.
04 Editorial: Thinking through history: opportunity for equality
06 In my view: we must support gifted historians from an early age – Lord Adonis
07 In my view: why we need a national...
Primary History 47: Thinking through history
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Out and About: The Parish Armoury in St Mary’s Church, Mendlesham
Historian feature
In the Tudor and early Stuart period most towns and villages had a legal obligation to store arms and armour in case of a national emergency. Here Shona Rutherford-Edge tells the story of the parish armoury in the Suffolk village of Mendlesham, which was kept in the local church and from which many...
Out and About: The Parish Armoury in St Mary’s Church, Mendlesham
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Doing history: The Old Poor Law in a Regency York Parish 1795–1847
Historian feature
In this regular feature called Doing History, history enthusiasts describe a piece of research they have undertaken and how it sheds light on aspects of local and national history. Here Steve Barrett shows how his exploration of archives in York provided interesting insights into the controversial issue of poor relief, with a focus...
Doing history: The Old Poor Law in a Regency York Parish 1795–1847
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What history should we teach? The HA Primary Survey
Primary History article
The government's 2010 White Paper makes clear that the history curriculum will be reviewed. This is the ideal time to consider that very contentious issue - What History Should We Teach? And who better to ask than those who really know and understand what the curriculum will look and feel...
What history should we teach? The HA Primary Survey
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Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Even an inclusive national history curriculum can make Britain (and Europe) appear as the lynchpin of world history. Without a coherent structure for global history, young people remain unaware that continents beyond Europe have histories of...
Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
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Who inherits the house? Using heritage to shape pupils’ thinking about historical significance
Teaching History article
Reflecting on the reasons why generic models for teaching historical significance are never quite adequate, Rachel Foster found herself considering, instead, the specific contexts in which arguments about historical significance arise. These reflections took her to the fascinating example of stately homes. Drawing on scholarship such as that of Peter...
Who inherits the house? Using heritage to shape pupils’ thinking about historical significance
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Shaping what matters: Year 9 decide why we should care about the Windrush scandal
Teaching History article
Mark Fowle began work on an enquiry to contextualise the Windrush scandal for his pupils in south London, in response to the first national Stephen Lawrence Day, in 2018. He went on to work with his colleagues in a new school to broaden pupils’ historical perspective through stories of migration...
Shaping what matters: Year 9 decide why we should care about the Windrush scandal
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Triumphs Show: Embracing scholarship to guide Year 7 on an exploration of the Silk Roads
Teaching History feature
It has been the same for history teachers all over the country: the dramatic shift in perspective after reading Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads. Frankopan’s groundbreaking scholarship transported me to distant lands. His book introduced me to cultures and civilisations previously unknown. I wanted my pupils to venture along the same...
Triumphs Show: Embracing scholarship to guide Year 7 on an exploration of the Silk Roads
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Move Me On 197: struggling to manage the history teacher education programme alongside part-time work
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 197: struggling to manage the history teacher education programme alongside part-time work
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The Holocaust in history and history in the curriculum
Teaching History article
In this powerfully argued article Paul Salmons focuses directly on the distinctive contribution that a historical approach to the study of the Holocaust makes to young people's education. Not only does he question the adequacy of objectives focused on eliciting purely emotional responses; he issues a strong warning that turning...
The Holocaust in history and history in the curriculum
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Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Peter Morgan represents what is best about the reflective practitioner - an experienced teacher of some 15 years' standing, he continues to challenge himself and to seek ways to improve and develop his classroom practice. Deeply influenced by the pedagogy and resources that he encountered on the CPD of the Institute...
Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
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Berlin and the Holocaust: a sense of place?
Teaching History article
As more and more schools take students on visits to locations associated with the history of the Holocaust, history teachers have to find ways to make these places historically meaningful for their students. David Waters shows here how he introduced his students to the multiple narratives associated with the history...
Berlin and the Holocaust: a sense of place?
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In search of Alice Molland: an English witchcraft will o’ the wisp
Historian article
As the Historical Association runs its short course on Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History, Mark Stoyle investigates an apparent turning point in the history of English witchcraft: the case of a woman accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Devon.
We also include Mark Stoyle's 'Doing History' companion piece to his...
In search of Alice Molland: an English witchcraft will o’ the wisp
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From our branches: Were we quite mad? Establishing the East Sussex Branch
Historian feature
John Oliphant gives us the lowdown on the Historical Association’s new East Sussex Branch, describing the tribulations faced by its committee before a lecture on Oliver Cromwell in September 2024 marked a successful start to the new academic year...
From our branches: Were we quite mad? Establishing the East Sussex Branch
