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Making use of outstanding resources in museums
Primary History article
‘An embarrassment of riches' is not an inappropriate description of the new ancient Egyptian galleries in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The Ashmolean has always been famous for its Egyptian collection, being the product of the work of Oxford academics for over a 100 years, but the problem in the...
Making use of outstanding resources in museums
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Time for chronology? Ideas for developing chronological understanding
Teaching History article
The successful study of history requires many things, but few would contest that an understanding of time is one of them. Quite what we mean by ‘an understanding of time’ needs clarification, however. Chronological understanding is one feature. But it is not simply an ability to place events in order...
Time for chronology? Ideas for developing chronological understanding
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Triumphs Show 148.1: collaborating to commemorate Olaudah Equiano
Teaching History feature
How a drink in the bar at the SHP conference - and discovery of a shared interest in ICT - led to the campaign for a Blue Plaque for an eighteenth-century abolitionist.
What do the 1970 Brazil World Cup-winning team, Charles Darwin and Vanilla Ice all have in common? This...
Triumphs Show 148.1: collaborating to commemorate Olaudah Equiano
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What can you tell about the Maya from a Spanish soldier?
Primary History article
This article focuses on the links between the Maya and Europe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, exploring the impact of the Spanish on the life and times of the Maya, as seen through the eyes of one man – Gonzalo Guerrero, who was shipwrecked off the Yucatan peninsula...
What can you tell about the Maya from a Spanish soldier?
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Siege coins of the English Civil War
Primary History article
Looking at the bigger picture and focusing on the local impact can excite primary school children and help them make a connection to a significant event. Combining it with a cross-curricular approach can be a great challenge. One such period is that of the English Civil War which started in...
Siege coins of the English Civil War
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Here comes the ‘60s
Primary History article
The 1960s were a decade of great change in Britain. The previous decade had seen America begin its gradual global cultural domination while Britain had to revise its role from imperial state to a member of the new Commonwealth of Nations. Recovery from the war had not been easy and...
Here comes the ‘60s
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Food – a theme for learning about the past
Primary History article
Food is a theme that can provide many opportunities for children to develop their understanding of the past. This is a popular theme in many Early Years settings and Reception classes. It can be planned at any time of year and can be adapted in many ways.
Food – a theme for learning about the past
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A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties
Historian article
More people than ever are seeking to trace their family histories. People can now sit at home and tap out in seconds from the internet many of their family's previously unknown genealogical details. But what if a century or more ago one of your family had tried to cover his...
A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties
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Local Authority Record Offices: Our Heritage at Risk
Article
Rosemary Dunhill fears the review of local government structures might lead to damaging cuts in the archive service. The lives of archivists in record offices run by local authorities have been dominated in the last few years by the review of local government. The Government wished to simplify local government...
Local Authority Record Offices: Our Heritage at Risk
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War Plan Red: the American Plan for war with Britain
Article
John Major discusses an astonishing aspect of past Anglo-American history. All great powers have developed contingency plans for war with each other, and the United States in the early twentieth century was no exception. Each of Washington’s schemes was given a distinctive colour. Green mapped out intervention in neighbouring Mexico,...
War Plan Red: the American Plan for war with Britain
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From Ashes to Icon
Historian article
Charles Stirton reflects on Middleton Hall and the creation of the National Botanic garden of Wales. Something significant is stirring in the gardening world. This year Wales will make history by opening the first national botanic garden in the third millennium. When visitors enter the new garden on the 24th...
From Ashes to Icon
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Travelling the Seventeenth-Century English Economy: Rediscovery of Celia Fiennes
Article
Pam Sharpe reflects on the journals and expeditions of a 17th-century traveller. I first encountered Celia Fiennes (1662-1741), early modern traveller and journal writer, when I was an undergraduate. Being a keen traveller myself and studying social and economic history, Fiennes’ journeys fascinated me1. Here was a woman who travelled...
Travelling the Seventeenth-Century English Economy: Rediscovery of Celia Fiennes
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Reflecting on rights: teaching pupils about pre-1832 British politics using a realistic role-play
Teaching History article
Ian Luff’s discussion of role-play and his many practical examples (Ian Luff (2000) in Issue 100) drew a huge and positive response from readers. Luff emphasised the simple and the realistic, and, at the same time, showed how to get maximum value from these winning activities through a tight learning...
Reflecting on rights: teaching pupils about pre-1832 British politics using a realistic role-play
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Designing end-of-year exams: trials and tribulations
Teaching History article
Since the decline of the National Curriculum Level Descriptions, schools in England have been asked to design their own forms of assessment at Key Stage 3. This had led to a great deal of creativity, but also a number of challenges. In this article Matt Stanford reflects on his department’s...
Designing end-of-year exams: trials and tribulations
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Cunning Plan 106: Political literacy
Teaching History feature
The onset of citizenship brings with it the need to cover political literacy. The topic can be seen as dry and complex by Year 9 pupils. But ‘democracy is not boring’ (Lang in Teaching History 96). We need to educate our pupils to understand the complexity and features of a...
Cunning Plan 106: Political literacy
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From road map to thought map: helping students theorise the nature of change
Teaching History article
Warren Valentine was dissatisfied with his Year 7 students’ accounts of change across the Tudor period. Fixated with Henry VIII’s wives, they failed to reflect on or analyse the bigger picture of the whole Tudor narrative.
In order to overcome this problem, his department created a ‘thought-map’ exercise in which...
From road map to thought map: helping students theorise the nature of change
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Polychronicon 167: The strange career of Richard Nixon
Teaching History feature
If you know just one thing about the career of the 37th President of the United States, it is likely to be this: Watergate. Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 was caused by his decision to cover up a burglary at the Democratic Party’s campaign headquarters for the 1972 election, which...
Polychronicon 167: The strange career of Richard Nixon
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Did all Ancient Greek women stay at home and weave?
Primary History article
We tend to focus on the bigger picture in teaching on the Ancient Greeks – democracy; Olympic Games; architecture; theatre; myths and legends – but children love the minutiae of everyday life. And half of the population of Ancient Greece was female. So just what part in life did women play? And how different was it to that of men?...
Did all Ancient Greek women stay at home and weave?
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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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A trail of garnet and gold: Sri Lanka to Anglo-Saxon England
Primary History Article
Sri Lankan garnet in Anglo-Saxon graves?
In 2009 news broke of a fabulous hoard of gold and garnet military ornaments unearthed in a Staffordshire field. TV reports mentioned the garnet might have come from Sri Lanka or India, but how could it have got here? I began reading up what used to be called ‘The Dark...
A trail of garnet and gold: Sri Lanka to Anglo-Saxon England
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Learning about the past through a study of houses and homes
Primary History article
A thematic study based on houses and homes is an excellent way to link learning about the past with something all children will be able to relate to – where they live. Planned carefully, it can provide a range of learning opportunities for both inside and outside the classroom.
Let’s look outside
Learning about houses...
Learning about the past through a study of houses and homes
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Active remembrance
Teaching History article
A year after the end of the First World War, George V stated: "I believe that my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate the memory of the Great Deliverance and those who laid down their lives to achieve it."
From that moment, the idea of large-scale remembrance...
Active remembrance
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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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1939 After Sixty Years
Article
Historians view major anniversaries with a measure of ambivalence. We know that they are artificial, that it is merely a convenient fiction to think that the passage of a round number of years provides a privileged vantage point from which to review the significance of a given event. Yet we...
1939 After Sixty Years
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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?
