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Using 1980s popular music to explore historical significance
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Scott Allsop helped his students to uncover the implicit criteria informing someone else's attribution of historical significance to past events. That ‘someone else' was Billy Joel whose 1989 song became the focus for deconstructive analysis....
Using 1980s popular music to explore historical significance
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Polychronicon 137: Bringing space travel down to Earth
Teaching History feature
It nearly began like this: ‘On Christmas Eve 1968, two episcopalians and a Roman Catholic were in orbit around the Moon.' I was writing a book called Earthrise, about the first views of Earth from space. Most other books about the Apollo programme of the 1960s and 1970s took an...
Polychronicon 137: Bringing space travel down to Earth
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Is any explanation better than none?
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What do we know about progression in historical understanding? In Teaching History 113, Lee and Shemilt discussed what progression models can and cannot do to help us think about measuring and developing pupils' understanding and...
Is any explanation better than none?
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Are we creating a generation of 'historical tourists'?
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
A trip to the battlefields of the First World War throws into stark relief the challenges presented by work on interpretations related to historical sites. Andrew Wrenn first drew attention to the difficulties of promoting...
Are we creating a generation of 'historical tourists'?
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A modest proposal for change in Canadian history education
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Peter Seixas recounts the development of a history education reform project in Canada. Like all good histories, it is a complex story and a matter of unanticipated consequences and ironic narrative twists.
Seixas' history is,...
A modest proposal for change in Canadian history education
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Cunning Plan 137: making homework more exciting
Teaching History journal feature
Ever since I started teaching, homework has been something of a bugbear. Administration alone is a hassle: not only remembering when to set and collect it in, but keeping track of the various students who fail to deliver anything on time (except highly creative excuses) and of the follow-up action...
Cunning Plan 137: making homework more exciting
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Triumphs Show 137: Assessing through reflection
Teaching History feature
Assessing through reflection:
How one history department has found a way to satisfy the Senior Leadership Team, parents and pupils through tightly focused self-assessment Teachers are caught between a rock and hard place when it comes to assessment. Senior leaders want to see evidence of regular ‘levelling' while (most) pupils...
Triumphs Show 137: Assessing through reflection
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Building and assessing a frame of reference in the Netherlands
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Concerns about our ability to equip young people with a frame of reference that they can actually use to orient themselves in time are widespread. The challenges were extensively debated within the last issue of...
Building and assessing a frame of reference in the Netherlands
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'Assessing Pupil Progress'
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
England's Qualification and Curriculum Development Authority (QCDA) has been working on a new way of trying to support teachers in handling interim assessment during Key Stage 3. It is called Assessing Pupil Progress (APP).
Jerome...
'Assessing Pupil Progress'
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Teaching History 137: Marking Time
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 Jerome Freeman and Joanne Philpott - ‘Assessing Pupil Progress': transforming teacher assessment in Key Stage 3 history (Read article)
14 Jannet van Drie, Albert Logtenberg, Bas van der Meijden and Marcel van Riessen - "When was that date?" Building and assessing a frame of reference...
Teaching History 137: Marking Time
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Pride in place: What does historical geographical and social understanding look like?
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘Some primary schools are like the High Street in many of our towns. I can predict what I will see before I go through the door. What I want to see is something that gives me...
Pride in place: What does historical geographical and social understanding look like?
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Cross Curricular Project on a famous person
Primary History case study
Please note: This article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated.
If you are considering studying someone other than Florence Nightingale you have two basic options. You can either choose a local character who would be more relevant to the children, or you could study someone who...
Cross Curricular Project on a famous person
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Using history to launch the creative curriculum
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
At its core, the creative curriculum is a carefully planned, thematic approach to teaching and learning, designed to support and stimulate children's natural curiosity and creativity. Children can work in depth, giving them time to reflect,...
Using history to launch the creative curriculum
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Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
The last edition of Primary History published the first part of the report on the KS2 to KS3 transitions project. Part 1 illuminated the first four of produced eight key ideas or guiding principles for...
Effective Primary History Teaching, Challenges & Opportunities
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Education for geographical understanding
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Geography is one of humanity's big ideas. It literally means something like ‘writing the world'. Thus, traditionally, geography is associated with rich descriptions of places. For many years geographers were almost synonymous with explorers, bringing back...
Education for geographical understanding
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Making links: Myths, legends and problem-solving with the Greeks
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Introduction: Meaningful links
"Teachers will be able to make links within and across areas of learning to help children understand how each distinctive area links to and is supported by others."
(Rose Chapter 2, 2.23)
‘Meaningful...
Making links: Myths, legends and problem-solving with the Greeks
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Drama and story telling
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Everyone loves a story - especially a story well told. To encourage learning all primary teachers should consider the creative art of telling a story, as well as developing a variety of ways of interacting through...
Drama and story telling
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How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
Primary History article
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
The Integrated Planning Process
Introduction - Rigour ‘v' enrichment. Despite loathing the term rigour, an empty word that has numerous definitions depending on who you speak to, many teachers, Head teachers and curriculum leaders are seeking ways of integrating and...
How do you enable creativity and empathy without loosing 'rigour'?
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Place, time and society
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editor's note The Place, Time and Society 8-13 Project was established in 1971 ‘to explore the problems of the part of the curriculum for children aged 8-13 which is related to the subject-areas of history, geography and...
Place, time and society
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Towards a new primary curriculum: The Cambridge Primary Review 2009
Primary History article
Towards a new primary curriculum: Cambridge Primary Review Part 1, Past and Present, Part 2, The Future - An editorial response to the Cambridge Primary Review.
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Introduction
The Cambridge Primary Review, director Robin Alexander, is the...
Towards a new primary curriculum: The Cambridge Primary Review 2009
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Primary History 53: Living history
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
Living history - a primary history curriculum for the 21st century: Historical, Geographical and Social Understanding
03 Editorial
04 The Historical Association’s response to the Rose Review
05 In my view: Towards a new primary curriculum: Cambridge Primary Review Part 1, Past and Present, Part 2, The Future — An...
Primary History 53: Living history
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Using Local Buildings
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Whilst there are many obvious historical buildings - castles, Roman Villas and Abbeys these often involve transport costs which may be beyond a school budget. Turner-Bisset suggests:
There is also history in ordinary, everyday sites,...
Using Local Buildings
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The view from the classroom
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As teachers we are all responsible, with our pupils, for the environment within our classrooms. Together we create calm and order, challenge and activity. The environment beyond is of infinite variety.
The view from my...
The view from the classroom
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What they think they know: the impact of pupils' preconceptions on their understanding of historical significance
Teaching History article
Robin Conway suspected that his students’ concepts of the significance of different aspects of historical periods was affected by the preconceptions that they brought to his lessons. These preconceptions were leading his students into making unhistorical judgments, without any real understanding on their part of what had affected their thinking....
What they think they know: the impact of pupils' preconceptions on their understanding of historical significance
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Hearts, Hamsters and Historic Education
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This is a reflection on a project, set up with a variety of different thoughts about education in its widest sense. Or, to put it another way, a primary school teacher's record of a unique...
Hearts, Hamsters and Historic Education
