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Teaching Robin Hood at Key Stage 1
Primary History article
The stories of Robin Hood, which date from the Middle Ages, are integral to an understanding of British history. Although historians have not been able to identify a single historical figure that can be called Robin Hood, rooted in evidence, the myth or legend of Robin Hood has had a...
Teaching Robin Hood at Key Stage 1
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Western Dress and Ambivalence in the South Pacific
Article
Michael Sturma examines an aspect of the cultural impact of the West in the South Pacific. ‘States of undress, or the partially clad body, invite particularly ambivalent responses.’ One of the main preoccupation’s of early European visitors to the South Pacific was the nudity or partial nudity of the indigenous...
Western Dress and Ambivalence in the South Pacific
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How can I improve my use of ICT? Put history first!
Teaching History article
What is the difference between using lots of ICT and using it well? Dave Atkin draws upon work in his own department and with other Gloucestershire teachers in order to identify criteria for effective ICT use. These boil down to ‘putting history first' and getting maximum value out of the...
How can I improve my use of ICT? Put history first!
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Move Me On 93: Not making progress in use of ICT
The problem page for history mentors
Millie Marvel, PGCE Student is not making use of ICT to teach history in the classroom
Problem:
Millie Marvel, student history teacher, is in Term 2 of her PGCE year. She enjoys using ICT and is highly competent in her use of several applications. However, lessons in which she has chosen...
Move Me On 93: Not making progress in use of ICT
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Thinking through history: assessment and learning for the gifted young historian
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Historical enquiry requires reasoning. Even historical imagination depends on being able to evaluate a number of possible responses to an hypothesis and mastery of detail and argument. The high levels of thinking in history of...
Thinking through history: assessment and learning for the gifted young historian
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Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
Article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Bog Body mysteries have played a central, seminal role in History Education in Britain since the 1970s. The investigation of the Tollund Man Mystery was the original, introductory investigation for pupils that the Schools Council [aka Schools]...
Case study: The body in the bog - Red Christian goes missing
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Teaching Styles and Pupil Learning: The Nuffield Primary History Project's Creative, Interactive Pedagogy - The Pupil' Voice
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article is a tribute to the 20th century’s most inspirational history teacher, John Fines. He embodied the principles of ‘doing history’ in his teaching and in the Nuffield Primary History Project that he directed....
Teaching Styles and Pupil Learning: The Nuffield Primary History Project's Creative, Interactive Pedagogy - The Pupil' Voice
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Out and About in Wheathampstead
Historian feature
Dianne Payne examines the structural local history of Wheathampstead and provides a template for wider comparisons.
The rural village of Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, situated about four miles from St Albans, lies on the River Lea. The village and surrounding land has a long history and in ancient times was owned by the...
Out and About in Wheathampstead
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Britain and the wider world in Tudor times
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The first two articles in this series introduced three generic principles which might underpin planning a scheme of work in the KS2 History Curriculum. Article 1 (Jan 2001) drew on contemporary history to analyse and explain the principles. Article 2 (May 2001)...
Britain and the wider world in Tudor times
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Spinning with the Brain: Women's Writing in Seventeenth Century England
Article
Norma Clarke and Helen Weinstein consider new approaches to the presentation of women writers on BBC radio. 'True it is, Spinning with the Fingers, is more proper to our Sex than Studying or Writing Poetry, which is Spinning with the Brain; but, having no skill in the art of the...
Spinning with the Brain: Women's Writing in Seventeenth Century England
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Can you bring the dead back to life...?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Victoria Rogers highlights the importance of encouraging school visits to heritage sites and museums.
Can you bring the dead back to life...?
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Triumphs Show 127: using the Anne Frank House's 'A Family Secret'
Teaching History feature: celebrating and sharing success
The Anne Frank House recently translated its comic book A Family Secret into English. By stressing the choices and dilemmas of ordinary people living in Amsterdam during the German Occupation, the comic seeks to revise the black and white ideas students hold of right and wrong. With five other history...
Triumphs Show 127: using the Anne Frank House's 'A Family Secret'
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Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the last edition of Teaching History, Maria Osowiecki described in detail the fourth lesson in a five-lesson enquiry entitled: What was remarkable about the Renaissance? She also shared her resources for two lively, interactive...
Seeing, hearing and doing the renaissance (Part 2)
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‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
Teaching History article
As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...
‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
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'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
Teaching History article
In this article, Helena Stride shows how the Imperial War Museum responded to criticism that insufficient attention had been paid to the contribution of black and Asian people to Britain’s wars. She focuses on one of two resource-packs produced by the Museum, which highlights the experience of Britain’s colonial peoples,...
'Britain was our home': Helping Years 9, 10, and 11 to understand the black experience of the Second World War
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Enhancing temporal cognition: practical activities for the primary classroom
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Research during the last eighty years has suggested that ‘time’ concepts, such as chronology, duration and the usage of dating systems are difficult for children to assimilate. However, my recent research would suggest that temporal concepts...
Enhancing temporal cognition: practical activities for the primary classroom
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Transforming Year 7's understanding of the concept of Imperialism: a case study on the Roman Empire
Teaching History article
Those of us in the U.K. know that many of our pupils finish their entire historical education without a satisfactory grasp of basic substantive concepts as they are used in history. Do all our low-attaining or ‘low ability’ 14-year-olds who are pressured to drop history at 14 really emerge with...
Transforming Year 7's understanding of the concept of Imperialism: a case study on the Roman Empire
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Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
Article
Mike Murray analyses the way in which curriculum development has broadened and strengthened our conceptions of high standards in historical learning for school students. He pays tribute to ground-breaking new theoretical principles from the Schools History Project and from new emphases upon contextual knowledge and ‘interpretations' in the first National...
Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
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The Jill Grey collection and Hitchin British schools
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Jill Grey lived in Hitchin and over a period of 25 years, collected over 35,000 items. A11 of the material relates to the history of education and social history of childhood. I am still in the process of cataloguing the collection and...
The Jill Grey collection and Hitchin British schools
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'How our area used to be back then': An oral history project in an east London school
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
How can oral history enquiries engage students with the study of history and help them connect their learning about the past to their present lives? How can oral history engage and develop students' understanding of...
'How our area used to be back then': An oral history project in an east London school
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Teaching history through nursery rhymes in the foundation stage
Primary History article
Please note: this article was written before the the 2014 National Curriculum and some content is now outdated.
All teachers working within the foundation stage will, at some time, be using nursery rhymes in their classrooms. Their importance to early language development has long been acknowledged, particularly the way in which they contribute to...
Teaching history through nursery rhymes in the foundation stage
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Anglo-Saxon Women
Primary History Article
The Anglo-Saxon era is a diverse period that stretches across just over 650 years. Those we call Anglo-Saxons were not homogenous nor were their experiences. In AD 410 the Roman legions leave and the first Anglo-Saxon raiders appear. These pagan warrior bands would come to terrorise Romano-British settlements until, inevitably,...
Anglo-Saxon Women
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Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
Historian article
In this article, Matt Jux-Blayney compares the British retreat from Kabul in 1842 with the most recent flight of NATO from Kabul in August 2021. Matt explores the various similarities between the two campaigns and includes personal recollections from his service in Afghanistan with the British Army.
On 6 January...
Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
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'A lot of guess work goes on': Children's understanding of historical accounts
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
The ESRC-funded Project Chata has collected evidence of children's ideas about the discipline of history and attempted to see if there is any progression in those ideas. Here, Peter Lee describes how Chata has tried...
'A lot of guess work goes on': Children's understanding of historical accounts
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How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
Teaching History article
School trips are, it seems, always in the news. They are under threat, or vital, or the preserve of wealthier students, or a forum for poor behaviour, or a day out of the classroom to build relationships, or a fantastic learning experience where students learn important life skills (such as...
How do we get better at going on trips: Planning for progression outside the classroom
