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Navigating the ‘imperial history wars’
Teaching History article
Concerned by the growing tendency of politicians and press to revive the moral balance-sheet approach to British imperial history and by some evidence of its resurgence in schools, Alex Benger set about devising a framework which would keep pupils’ analysis rigorously historical, rather than moral and politicised. In this article,...
Navigating the ‘imperial history wars’
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Short cuts to deep knowledge
Teaching History article
Sam Pullan explains how a chance encounter has helped him to improve his introduction to the modern themes and founding documents of US politics. Working with a professional historian whom he met, by chance, over dinner, he was able to produce lessons at the cutting edge of subject knowledge to...
Short cuts to deep knowledge
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Learning from a pandemic
Teaching History article
In order to contextualise and make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic, Verity Morgan worked with her school’s long-standing partner school in Ghana to devise an innovative project combining history and science, past and present. In this article, Morgan sets out the rationale for the project, her detailed adaptation of a British Council...
Learning from a pandemic
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Pull-out posters: Primary History 91
One of my favourite history places; What's in a road?
One of my favourite history places
What's in a road?
Pull-out posters: Primary History 91
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Exploring the past through active enquiry
Primary History article
Story and enquiry – that’s what I think of when considering history. The stories of events and people pull you into the past and stories generate a curiosity that encourages exploration. ‘Finding out’ is central to what we do in history. Our early-years classrooms must provide vibrant and challenging environments...
Exploring the past through active enquiry
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Bringing an archaeologist into the classroom
Primary History article
The past as represented in school history textbooks and websites is adapted to meet the needs of primary-aged children, but the knowledge on which this depends derives from detailed academic research. Engaging children with historians and archaeologists can show them how we learn about and construct our understanding of history...
Bringing an archaeologist into the classroom
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Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
Primary History article
"Instead of a curriculum where race, gender and disability are mainly rooted in victim narratives, include positive representation. Go beyond teaching slavery and the Holocaust or gender narratives of victimhood…Actively use examples and narratives countering this dominance." Bennie Kara, (2021, p.59)
The 2014 National Curriculum for history sets out that children...
Wangari Maathai as a significant individual
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Trade – lifeblood of the empire: how trade affected life in Roman Britain
Primary History article
The Ofsted Research Review: History highlights the importance of developing children’s understanding of key substantive concepts, ideas that are woven through historical content such as settlement, invasion, power. Children’s understanding grows more complex as they encounter these ideas in different contexts, enabling children to grow increasingly sophisticated schemas that support future...
Trade – lifeblood of the empire: how trade affected life in Roman Britain
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What’s in a road? Local history at Early Years and Key Stage 1
Primary History article
One of the many amazing things about History is that it can be found in everything; even the smallest or most mundane objects can provide an insight into how life has changed or provide a greater understanding of a different period in time.
Late October last year as the light...
What’s in a road? Local history at Early Years and Key Stage 1
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One of my favourite history places: Neuschwanstein Castle
Primary History feature
Visiting Neuschwanstein Castle is a dramatic if seemingly unreal experience and for this reason it is one of my favourite historical sites. The castle is situated on the slopes of the Alps in Bavaria, close to the village of Hohenschwangau, overlooking low-lying plains to the north. The ornate turrets, Romanesque windows...
One of my favourite history places: Neuschwanstein Castle
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The Historian 51
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
9 Brasses and History (The 1707 Act of Union) - Christopher Whatley
14 Local Authority Record Offices: Our Heritage at Risk - Rosemary Dunhill (Read article)
16 The Eighteenth century in Britain: long or short? W.A. Speck
20 Football and British-Soviet relations: The Moscow Dynamo and Moscow Spartak tours of 1945...
The Historian 51
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From Lithuania to Lancashire: life and death in the pursuit of freedom
Historian article
In this article, Simon Bromiley explores the history of twentieth-century Lithuania through the life of his grandfather. He experienced much of its difficult history, including the Soviet annexation of 1940 and the German invasion and occupation of the following year. The article follows him as he made a new life for himself in...
From Lithuania to Lancashire: life and death in the pursuit of freedom
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New opportunities for history: implementing the citizenship curriculum in England's secondary schools - a QCA perspective
Teaching History article
In September 2002 Citizenship becomes a completely new subject in England’s secondary schools. Jerome Freeman, Principal Officer for History with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) — the authority responsible for advising the British government on curriculum content and qualification standards in England - outlines QCA’s view on the connections...
New opportunities for history: implementing the citizenship curriculum in England's secondary schools - a QCA perspective
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Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Jacob Olivey set out to design enquiries which would enable his pupils to reconstruct, using evidence, the perspectives of people in the past. In this article he shares in detail the planning and outcomes of two enquiries: one for Year 7 and one for Year 8. Olivey offers a example...
Creating a progression model for teaching historical perspectives in Key Stage 3
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Pull-out posters: Primary History 90
Timeline of Queen Elizabeth II; Queen and Commonwealth
Timeline of Queen Elizabeth II
Queen and Commonwealth
Pull-out posters: Primary History 90
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Using ancient monuments to help teach about pre-Roman times in Britain
Primary History article
It is inconceivable that anyone teaching ancient Britain has not used some of the famous sites such as Stonehenge, Avebury, Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar or Stones of Stenness. They are vital sources of information for this period of history and the teaching usually introduces the element of mystery...
Using ancient monuments to help teach about pre-Roman times in Britain
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How an atlas and a very old map can help us make sense of the ancient Greeks
Primary History article
The ancient Greeks were a maritime people – they travelled and traded vast distances by sea, but rarely left sight of land. They were also a very divided nation. Separate city states fiercely guarded their independence, only uniting [sometimes!] to fight against a common enemy like the Persians. The Greeks all...
How an atlas and a very old map can help us make sense of the ancient Greeks
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Female migration to Australia
Primary History article
The Hyde Park Barracks, in Sydney, has a layered history. Designed by Francis Greenway (a convict architect) it was built between 1817 and 1819 by convict labour. Over the next three decades an estimated 50,000 male convicts passed through – some stayed for years, others days or only hours before...
Female migration to Australia
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Ukraine, children and schools
Primary History article
Children of different ages and maturity will have different levels of understanding and capacity for processing the information unfolding in Ukraine. Children under the age of five may have a very limited understanding of the conflict in Ukraine. If your young child asks you a question about what is happening, you...
Ukraine, children and schools
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One of my favourite history places: Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds
Primary History article
When I was born my family lived in Kirkstall close to the Abbey and Abbey House Museum. We moved to Ireland Wood not long after this photograph was taken (I am the small one in the middle) but if we ever had a day out in the city we would...
One of my favourite history places: Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds
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Playing in the pandemic: Introducing the Play Observatory
Primary History article
What happens to children’s play in a global pandemic? In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic was sweeping across the world, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from University College London and the University of Sheffield was beginning to plan a project to address this central question.
We began with history in...
Playing in the pandemic: Introducing the Play Observatory
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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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The last days of Lord Londonderry
Historian article
Richard A. Gaunt explores a tragedy at the heart of early nineteenth century British politics, with the suicide of Viscount Castlereagh.
At 7.30 in the morning on Monday 12 August 1822, Robert Stewart, second Marquess of Londonderry, died from self-inflicted injuries caused by cutting the carotid artery in his neck...
The last days of Lord Londonderry
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The Historian 50: The Birth of the modern Olympics
The magazine of the Historical Association
2 The birth of the modern Olympics - Michael Biddiss (Read article)
8 The insanity of Henry VI - Carole Rawcliffe (Read article)
13 Trewarthenick, Cornwall: the ancestral home of the Gregor family - Christine North (Read article)
16 Minority Rights and Wrongs in Eastern Europe in the 20th Century -...
The Historian 50: The Birth of the modern Olympics
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Illuminating the possibilities of the past
Teaching History article
Claire Holliss reports here on the ways in which she has responded over time to the call to ‘do justice’ to the histories of those long neglected within the school curriculum. Reflection on the need to ensure that the discipline of history remained central to any reform prompted her to...
Illuminating the possibilities of the past
