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The Vikings: ruthless killers or peaceful settlers?
Primary History article
This article outlines how one Year 4 teacher approached the topic of the Vikings. The teaching of The Vikings allows for a range of historical concepts to be explored such as:
Chronological understanding – how long did Viking influence last? Where does it appear on the timeline of Britain? What...
The Vikings: ruthless killers or peaceful settlers?
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Ideas for Assemblies: The life stories of refugees - Judith Kerr
Primary History feature
Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the Mog stories, came to Britain in 1936 with her brother Michael and their parents, Alfred and Julia Kerr. Her father was Jewish, an anti-Nazi, and famous theatre critic who fled Berlin as Hitler came to power in 1933,...
Ideas for Assemblies: The life stories of refugees - Judith Kerr
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TREE-mendous history!
Primary History article
Since the nineteenth century there has been a rich heritage of outdoor learning pedagogy in Europe, and today in Scandinavia the open air culture (frulitsliv) permeates Early Years education. In 1993 Bridgewater College nursery nurses returned from a visit to Denmark enthused by the outdoor educational settings and started their own ‘Forest School'. From 1995 the college...
TREE-mendous history!
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Using the back cover image: Exploring the collections of Victorian naturalists
Primary History feature
Many museums around the country house natural history collections that offer children the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of species from around the world. Using the collections of Victorian explorers and naturalists offers children a historical perspective with a cross-curricular approach which has a great appeal. Yet for...
Using the back cover image: Exploring the collections of Victorian naturalists
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What can you do with a Victorian Trade Directory…?
Primary History article
What is a trade directory?
Trade directories are the equivalent of the telephone directory and the Yellow Pages. They were published on a county or city basis every year and contain detailed descriptions of every village and town in the county. They also contain pages and pages of advertisements, for...
What can you do with a Victorian Trade Directory…?
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Grace O' Malley, alias Granuaile, pirate & politician, c. 1530-1603
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Northamptonshire Inspection & Advisory Service (NIAS) can confirm Paul Bracey’s view of the way Ireland’s rich stories help to provide a ‘sounder map of the past’ and increase ‘choice, range and fun in our...
Grace O' Malley, alias Granuaile, pirate & politician, c. 1530-1603
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‘Not again!’ - an additional viewpoint on using railways
Primary History article
‘Not again!’ I can remember my son muttering as his football thudded against the kitchen wall, ‘I went there in Year 2 and then in Year 4 and now I have to go there again in Year 6.’ He was referring to his school trips to the remains of the gunpowder factories in our village,...
‘Not again!’ - an additional viewpoint on using railways
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Ideas for Assemblies: Refugee stories
Primary History feature
Please note: this piece was written before Sir Mo Farah’s 2022 disclosure that he was trafficked to the UK as a child, so some of its content is no longer accurate.
An assembly could focus on the achievements of their lives, experiences as child refugees and migrants, and how they overcame...
Ideas for Assemblies: Refugee stories
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How technology has changed our lives
Primary History article
This article links teaching about Sir Tim Berners-Lee to Changes in Living Memory and Significant Individuals and makes comparisons between Caxton and the impact of earlier developments in communications technology.
It provides interesting topics for discussion about significance (pupils may be surprised by the idea that they are living through an exciting period of history at the moment). It even has the...
How technology has changed our lives
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The gall nuts and lapis trail
Primary History article
We are used to images of monks copying out texts in a very ornate manner. Books such as the Lindisfarne Gospels still absolutely amaze us with their colour, style and appearance. It must have taken hours and hours to copy out a text like that.
But how was it done? And how did the monks make the inks they...
The gall nuts and lapis trail
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Why is diversity so important and how can we approach it?
Primary History article
Imagine what the following scenarios tell you about the past – a Tudor role-play of Queen Elizabeth visiting Kenilworth Castle; a photograph of London during the Blitz; a picture of Viking warriors attacking Lindisfarne monastery. The first of the images can perhaps draw on a family visit to an event...
Why is diversity so important and how can we approach it?
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Using the back cover image: Mummified cat
Primary History feature
For hundreds of years, travellers to Egypt have marvelled at the amazing monuments evident throughout the country. The treasures of Ancient Egypt became more fascinating after the discovery of the Rosetta stone in 1799, which led to the deciphering of the hieroglyphic language. Many Victorian explorers returned to their European...
Using the back cover image: Mummified cat
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Using artefacts to develop young children’s understanding of the past
Primary History article
In the children’s picture book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Wilfrid is a small boy who meets Miss Nancy, an old lady who has lost her memory. Wilfrid wants to help, and so he carefully fills a basket with special objects and takes them to her. He places a medal in...
Using artefacts to develop young children’s understanding of the past
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Who's afraid of the Big Bad Bronze Age?
Primary History article
It’s September 1992 and in Dover archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust are working alongside construction workers when six metres below ground they find some waterlogged planks. Thankfully, an expert in maritime archaeology is on site and he recognises that this could be a lot more than abandoned timber. Uncovering...
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Bronze Age?
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The Historian 16
The magazine of the Historical Association
3 Feature: Reflections on the Armada Campaign, A.N. Ryan
10 Europe: Adventure in Understanding, Frederic Delouche
11 Update: Women in America, Margaret Walsh
14 Education: History in Primary Schools, Ann Low-Beer
15 Eyewitness: Letters from Nuremberg, Ron Brooks
The Historian 16
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Putting life into history: how pupils can use oral history to become critical historians
Teaching History article
However imaginative and enquiring classroom history may be, the history itself is usually constructed by a historian, a textbook author or a teacher. It is rare that pupils gain the opportunity to construct original histories of their own. Oral history can offer this opportunity. Yet as a methodology, oral history...
Putting life into history: how pupils can use oral history to become critical historians
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War memorials as a local history resource
Primary History article
War Memorials Trust (WMT) is the charity that works for the protection and conservation of war memorials in the UK. It defines a war memorial as ‘any physical object created, erected or installed to commemorate those involved in or affected by a conflict or war' (WMT 2009, ‘Definition of a...
War memorials as a local history resource
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Competition and counterfactuals without confusion
Teaching History article
Paula Worth was searching not only for a rigorous question, capable of engendering genuine debate, but also for an engaging and enjoyable activity that would secure GCSE students' substantive knowledge. The answer - or rather the question - lay in counterfactual thinking: a carefully crafted game that she devised, based...
Competition and counterfactuals without confusion
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Working with Boudicca texts - contemporary, juvenile and scholarly
Teaching History 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...
Working with Boudicca texts - contemporary, juvenile and scholarly
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Writing: demonstration and modelling
Primary History article
Pupils' historical writing can take thousands of different forms, for example, an advert, comic, magazine article, love letter, short story, exam essay, poster or account of a castle visit. For pupils to compose in any genre they must understand and assimilate the genre's skeletal framework, its mode, tenor, field - pp....
Writing: demonstration and modelling
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Children writing history: The writing spectrum
Primary History article
"Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd to resign it to him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be...
Children writing history: The writing spectrum
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Teaching History 179: Culture in Conversation
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article for free)
03 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
10 No more ‘doing’ diversity: how one department used Year 8 input to reform curricular thinking about content choice – Catherine Priggs (Read article)
20 What Have Historians Been Arguing About... migration and empire – Lauren Working (Read article)...
Teaching History 179: Culture in Conversation
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Poverty in Britain: A development study for Key Stage 2
Primary History article
One of the requirements for Key Stage 2 history is for some history that extends beyond 1066. Various suggestions have been made including an examination of change within a social theme. The example given is Crime and Punishment but the opportunities for something interesting are vast. This article focuses on...
Poverty in Britain: A development study for Key Stage 2
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Don't forget key skills!
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
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...
Don't forget key skills!
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Using the back cover image: Oxford Street in the 1960s
Primary History feature
Photographs are very useful and productive documents when teaching history. They provide a snapshot of the past such as this one from just outside Selfridges on Oxford Street in London c.1962-64. Combined with further images from Heritage Explorer, clips from Pathé News, extracts from the 1911 Census, locally gathered images...
Using the back cover image: Oxford Street in the 1960s
