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Should empathy come out of the closet?
Teaching History article
What is historical empathy and why is it important? What has gone wrong and what had gone right in past attempts to develop students' empathetic understanding? What does progression look like in this area of historical thinking and what are the preconceptions that can act as barriers to progression? Lee...
Should empathy come out of the closet?
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Time's arrows? Using a dartboard scaffold to understand historical action
Teaching History article
Arthur Chapman presents a task-specific scaffold - a ‘dart' board - designed to teach students how to interrogate sources of information so that these become sources of evidence for particular claims about past actions, beliefs and aims. Chapman also uses his ‘dart' board to foster students' reflection on the degrees of...
Time's arrows? Using a dartboard scaffold to understand historical action
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Getting Year 7 to vocalise responses to the murder of Thomas Becket
Teaching History article
Mary Partridge wanted her pupils not only to become more aware of competing and contrasting voices in the past, but to understand how historians orchestrate those voices. Using Edward Grim's eye-witness account of Thomas Becket's murder, her Year 7 pupils explored nuances in the word ‘shocking' as a way of...
Getting Year 7 to vocalise responses to the murder of Thomas Becket
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Cunning Plan 143: enquiries about the British empire
Teaching History journal feature
I wanted to give my Year 8 students ownership of their work on the British Empire by allowing them to suggest our ‘enquiry question'. In order to introduce the Empire, I brought in sugar, spices, bananas, chilli peppers and cotton. I then showed maps demonstrating the Empire at its height....
Cunning Plan 143: enquiries about the British empire
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Using visual sources to understand the arguments for women's suffrage
Teaching History article
Visual sources, Jane Card argues, are a powerful resource for historical learning but using them in the classroom requires careful thought and planning. Card here shares how she has used visual source material in order to teach her students about the women's suffrage movement. In particular, Card shows how a...
Using visual sources to understand the arguments for women's suffrage
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Creating confident historical readers at A-level
Teaching History article
How can we help pupils learn to read historically? Gary Howells explores this question by explaining how he builds reading challenges into the course of his pupils' post-16 studies and by describing some of the tasks that pupils are set and the principles that underpin them. Howells argues that over...
Creating confident historical readers at A-level
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Teaching History 143: Constructing Claims
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 Gary Howells - Why was Pitt not a mince pie? Enjoying argument without end: creating confident historical readers at A Level (Read article)
15 Jane Card - Seeing the point: using visual sources to understand the arguments for women's suffrage (Read article)
20...
Teaching History 143: Constructing Claims
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Causation maps: emphasising chronology in causation exercises
Teaching History article
Analogies for teaching about causation abound. Rick Rogers is alert, however, to the risks inherent in drawing on everyday ideas to explain historical processes.
What most often gets lost is the importance of the chronological dimension; both the length of time during which some contributory causes may have been present,...
Causation maps: emphasising chronology in causation exercises
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Historiography from below: how undergraduates remember learning history at school
Teaching History article
What do our students make of the history that we teach them? As part of an introductory module on historiography, Marcus Collins asked his undergraduate students to analyse the history that they had been taught at school and college using historiographic concepts. The results make for interesting reading. What do...
Historiography from below: how undergraduates remember learning history at school
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Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
Teaching History article
Understanding historical interpretation involves understanding how historical knowledge is constructed. How do sixth formers model historical epistemology? In this article Arthur Chapman examines a small sample of data relating to sixth form students' ideas about why historians construct differing interpretations of the past. He argues that understanding interpretation requires students to...
Developing sixth-form students' thinking about historical interpretation
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Polychronicon 142: 'instructive reversals' - (re)interpreting the 1857 events in Northern India
Teaching History feature
The dramatic, chaotic and violent events that took place in Northern India in 1857/8 have been interpreted in many ways, as, for example, the ‘Indian Mutiny', the ‘Sepoy War' and the ‘First Indian War of Independence'. The tales that have been told about these events have been profoundly shaped, however,...
Polychronicon 142: 'instructive reversals' - (re)interpreting the 1857 events in Northern India
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Racism and equality through the 1936 Berlin Olympics: the Olympics, Nationalism and Identity
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This article outlines ideas for teaching history with crosscurricular links to citizenship, with a Year 6 class...
Racism and equality through the 1936 Berlin Olympics: the Olympics, Nationalism and Identity
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The Berlin Olympics 1936
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Nazi Germany was the backdrop of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The Nazi party used the games for propaganda whilst hiding its racist and militaristic campaign. The following activities seek to encourage historical inquiry and interpretation, through...
The Berlin Olympics 1936
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William Brookes and the Olympic Games
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
History flows like a river, sometimes quiet and unobtrusive, sometimes a raging torrent with wide-ranging effects on the world around us. It is punctuated by momentous events and significant individuals, who impact on its direction and...
William Brookes and the Olympic Games
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Your Victorian (And Greek!) Olympic Games
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The teaching ideas below are adapted from an idea the great John Fines developed for teaching Ancient Greek science. With active teacher support and guidance, it requires the pupils to use what they know, and their...
Your Victorian (And Greek!) Olympic Games
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Local History and the 2012 Olympics
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
With the 2012 London Olympics rapidly approaching, you are probably marvelling at what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this is and what amazing classroom teaching opportunities it might bring.
You have probably already been inundated with ideas for...
Local History and the 2012 Olympics
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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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Investigating the ancient Olympic games: A Case Study
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In a 10-week unit on Ancient Greece, we gave the fourth lesson over to the ancient Olympic Games. The class was a delight: 32 enthusiastic Year 6 children in an urban county primary school.
We knew...
Investigating the ancient Olympic games: A Case Study
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The Olympic Games, Classical and Modern
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Possibly a ‘once in a lifetime' experience will be witnessing the British hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games. Despite the inevitable commercialisation of the event, it will certainly be possible for children to be excited and...
The Olympic Games, Classical and Modern
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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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An Olympic Great? Dorando Pietri
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Italian confectioner Dorando Pietri is one of the most famous figures from the 1908 Olympics - famous for not winning. His story raises issues of sportsmanship suitable for class discussion. There are detailed accounts readily...
An Olympic Great? Dorando Pietri
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From Champion to Hero: Engaging Pupils in a study of significant Olympians
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Allocated the task of researching and presenting ideas for teaching about significant Olympians, I thought: ‘Brilliant, this is the easy one'. How wrong can one be! I expected to be able to access a plethora of...
From Champion to Hero: Engaging Pupils in a study of significant Olympians
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Story, myth and legend: The Story of Atalanta
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Time and change in stories
Everyone loves a story and stories have always been at the heart of early years education. Children can relate their own experiences of time to stories in picture books about other...
Story, myth and legend: The Story of Atalanta
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Using the Olympics as a learning tool: Active Research and Selecting Information
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The London 2012 Olympics presents a fantastic opportunity for cross-curricular teaching. All children are likely to be engaged on some level, with different countries represented in a variety of sports, huge coverage in the news and...
Using the Olympics as a learning tool: Active Research and Selecting Information
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Shropshire's Secret Olympic History
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What has a small Shropshire town got to do with the modern Olympic Games? Why is a country doctor a key figure in the development of the modern games? Why is one of the 2012 mascots...
Shropshire's Secret Olympic History
