-
Less time, more thought: coping with the challenges of two-year Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Nathan Cole and Denise Thompson have really thought about Key Stage 3. They have been forced to; they now teach it in only two years. The switch to a two-year Key Stage 3 has made them re-evaluate their entire programme of study, and their rationale for teaching history. The result...
Less time, more thought: coping with the challenges of two-year Key Stage 3
-
Case study 3: All hands on deck!
Primary History article
Editorial note: A perfect complement to Barbara's articles is Helen Horler's. ‘ARTEFACT HANDLING AT BRUNEL'S SS GREAT BRITAIN ...Touch, Look, Listen, Smell - But Please Don't Taste' in Primary History 54, 2010.
Introduction: Time Helmet
For those who yawn at the prospect of yet another "famous person", and wonder how...
Case study 3: All hands on deck!
-
The Victorian Age
Classic Pamphlet
This Classic Pamphlet was published in 1937 (the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837).
Synopsis of contents:
1. Is the Victorian Age a distinct 'period' of history?
Landmarks establishing its beginning: the Reform Bill, railways, other inventions, new leaders in...
The Victorian Age
-
Teaching about the German Occupation of Jersey through the Occupation Tapestry
Primary History article
The German Occupation and subsequent liberation of Jersey is particularly significant for schools in Jersey and is included in a new history curriculum being trialled for Key Stage 1 and 2 to be implemented in 2023. For children in Jersey, it relates to a significant event at Key Stage 1...
Teaching about the German Occupation of Jersey through the Occupation Tapestry
-
The Great Charter: Then and now
Historian article
Magna Carta is a document not only of national but of international importance. Alexander Lock shows how its name still has power all over the world, especially in the United States.
Although today only three of its clauses remain on the statute book, Magna Carta still flourishes as a potent...
The Great Charter: Then and now
-
The Maya: a 4,000-year-old civilisation in the Americas
Primary History article
Obscured by the fame of the Aztec empire or shrouded by a veil of mystery, the cultural history of the Maya has generally been misunderstood by the British public. Maya civilisation developed in a territory the size of Germany and Denmark together (nearly 400,000 km2). This vast territory shows three...
The Maya: a 4,000-year-old civilisation in the Americas
-
Move Me On 148: Using 'Bloom's taxonomy'
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Matt Boulton is using Bloom's taxonomy in very mechanistic ways to plan lesson objectives and think about progression in history.
Matt Boulton worked for 18 months as a Teaching Assistant before deciding to become a qualified teacher. His previous experience and understanding of the needs of students with...
Move Me On 148: Using 'Bloom's taxonomy'
-
Out and About in Chester
Historian feature
This ‘aide memoire’ to Chester’s local history has been prepared to enable 2019 Annual Conference delegates – and other visitors – to gain a ‘flavour’ of what Chester has to offer.
A visitor to Chester encounters the bustle and excitement of a busy cathedral city but behind this façade lies...
Out and About in Chester
-
Deconstructing lazy analogies in Year 9
Teaching History article
Reflecting on the continuing problem of students holding an impoverished understanding of the value or ‘uses' of history, Steve Rollett turned his attention to the question of analogy. He took the axiom to which students make common appeal (‘we can learn from mistakes in the past') and set about trying...
Deconstructing lazy analogies in Year 9
-
Stories and National Identity
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
If you were asked to select just one story which you thought all children should know about British history, what would it be? Would it be Guy Fawkes or Florence Nightingale? The battle of Hastings...
Stories and National Identity
-
Polychronicon 138: The Civil Rights Movement
Teaching History feature
"He was The One, The Hero, The One Fearless Person for whom we had waited. I hadn't even realized before that we had been waiting for Martin Luther King, Jr, but we had."
So spoke the novelist Alice Walker in 1972, looking back on her teenage years. And so wrote...
Polychronicon 138: The Civil Rights Movement
-
Out and About in Ardmore, County Waterford
Historian article
Within the historic landscape it is frequently possible to identify the impact of deeply religious figures who have exercised very real and long-lasting spiritual influence on their communities and indeed on the very landscape itself.Often these are shadowy figures in a distant past where myth and history intertwine. Sometimes it is...
Out and About in Ardmore, County Waterford
-
Taking control of assessment
Teaching History article
Ian Luff recognised that in a post-levels world efforts to devise new assessment systems risked replicating old problems or creating new ones. Drawing on his many years’ experience of teaching and school leadership Luff argues that for assessment in history to be truly useful to teachers and pupils it needs...
Taking control of assessment
-
Out and About in Washington DC
Historian feature
Not everyone loves the capital of the United States. To Ulysses S Grant, it was a ‘pestilential swamp’; to novelist Gore Vidal, a ‘city of the dead’. It is true that Washington still has its problems. The District of Columbia has the highest crime rate in the United States, and the...
Out and About in Washington DC
-
Hitting the right note: how useful is the music of African-Americans to historians?
Teaching History article
Here is a wonderful reminder of the richness of materials available to history teachers. With ever greater emphasis being placed on different learning styles, it is a good moment to remind ourselves that we can cater for virtually all of them in our classrooms. This includes a preference for learning...
Hitting the right note: how useful is the music of African-Americans to historians?
-
Britain, Europe and the World?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
With the current debate on what content we should teach, and especially with the focus on pupils understanding the history of Britain before they leave school, it is perhaps pertinent to ask how this should link...
Britain, Europe and the World?
-
Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
Historian article
Khadija Tauseef introduces the first of four successive sultanahs of Aceh during the seventeenth century.
As the sun sets on the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we pause and look back at the many queens that have contributed greatly to our historical heritage. While female sovereigns in Islamic kingdoms were a...
Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
-
Assessment without Level Descriptions
Teaching History article
Two heads of department in contrasting schools explain why they do not use Level Descriptions at all, other than at the very end of Key Stage 3. Influenced by ‘assessment for learning' principles, Sally Burnham and Geraint Brown develop a case for using assessment to help pupils grow in understanding...
Assessment without Level Descriptions
-
Dr Black Box or How I learned to stop worrying and love assessment
Teaching History article
Drawing upon experimental work in different history departments, Mark Cottingham explores ‘assessment for learning' principles in practice. He raises the problem of a clash between these approaches and the progression model inherent in the National Curriculum Attainment Target, and, crucially, the way in which history departments are expected to use...
Dr Black Box or How I learned to stop worrying and love assessment
-
Teaching controversial issues...where controversial issues really matter
Teaching History article
This is the fourth in a series of Teaching History articles about teaching history in N orthern Ireland co-authored by Alan McCully. The first two articles (in editions 106 and 114) outlined teaching strategies to help pupils in N orthern Ireland understand and relate to complex and often controversial issues...
Teaching controversial issues...where controversial issues really matter
-
Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
Article
After a revolution to remove the monarchy did the French revolutionaries create another leadership of power over ideals? William Doyle re-evaluates the reputation of the so-called architect of terror during the French Revolutionary years.
Two recent books reflect a seemingly endless fascination with the man whose downfall brought the end...
Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
-
After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
Historian article
This article examines the aftermath of three epoch-making periods of change – the English, American, and French Revolutions. A comparison of the trio of military commanders who gained power as a direct consequence of these upheavals reveals how the very political radicalism which brought them to power also threatened to...
After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
-
New, Novice or Nervous? 155: Similarity & Difference
Teaching History feature
This page is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Every problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don't exist. But if you discover others' writing, you'll soon find - and want to join - something better: an international conversation in which...
New, Novice or Nervous? 155: Similarity & Difference
-
Helping Year 9 explore the cultural legacies of WW1
Teaching History article
A world turned molten: helping Year 9 to explore the cultural legacies of the First World War
Rachel Foster shows how her own study of cultural history led to a new dimension in her planning. She wanted to show her students not only that historians are interested in many different...
Helping Year 9 explore the cultural legacies of WW1
-
The devil is the detail
Teaching History journal article
Like many history departments, Hugh Richards' department at Huntington School uses enquiry questions to structure their medium-term planning. Yet Richards noticed that his efforts to build knowledge across an enquiry by teaching macro-narratives as an unfolding story seemed to make it harder for some pupils to see and retain the...
The devil is the detail
