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A creative Egyptian project
Primary History article
Ideally when teaching history, teachers will look to deliver projects that will engage and motivate, hopefully making the hard work of being creative stimulating and rewarding, based upon questioning, enquiry, investigation of sources and reaching conclusions grounded in the evidence.Ancient Egypt is one of those history topics which, because it...
A creative Egyptian project
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Learning history through the lens of artefacts
Primary History article
Lindsay Marshall is a primary school teacher and subject leader for history in a primary school on the Wirral. She has embedded the use of artefacts throughout her school’s curriculum. In this article Lindsay outlines the importance of allowing children to ‘get up close and personal’ with history in order...
Learning history through the lens of artefacts
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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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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
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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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Using objects and writing KS1 exemplar: Old and new telephones
Exemplar
Lynn Cowell's Year 2 class were doing a project on old and new telephones, with the primary aim of developing the children's skills in investigating objects. During the project, I visited the class once a week.
Lynn and I began by showing the children four telephones: a candlestick phone, an...
Using objects and writing KS1 exemplar: Old and new telephones
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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
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Using inventories in Key Stage 2 history
Primary History article
Continuing the focus on using historical sources, this article by Clare Lally introduces us to the use of historical inventories. Using examples from the Tudor period, Clare considers how inventories can be used to explore diversity of experience between rich and poor.
At every stage of historical enquiry, from primary...
Using inventories in Key Stage 2 history
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Using trade directories: reconstructing life 100 years ago
Primary History article
Alf Wilkinson has previously covered the importance of trade directories as a source that teachers can use in primary history. Alf develops this into a case study for a Lincolnshire village that can be used as a template for primary teachers. All communities have distinctive characteristics and Alf outlines these...
Using trade directories: reconstructing life 100 years ago
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Why we need to teach about the history of trees and woodland...
Primary History article
Michael Riley highlights the importance of educating children about the history of trees and woodland. He explores the potential of primary history to develop an understanding of our changing relationship with trees. The article shows how a focus on trees and woodland could enhance an existing history study, and suggests...
Why we need to teach about the history of trees and woodland...
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A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
The employment of the visual image is a fascinating and exciting way to enable children to gain a glimpse into the past. It is problematic, however, in that such imagery is often an...
A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
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Ideas for Assemblies: Women in parliament
Article
A fundamental part of British values is our democracy. The system theoretically gives people equal rights because everyone is entitled to one vote that has the same value when placed in the ballot box. The progress made with regards to equal suffrage is an important aspect of teaching about democracy...
Ideas for Assemblies: Women in parliament
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Flight
Lesson Plan
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Download the attached lessons below.
Cross-curricular lessons in History, Science, and Design & Technology:
the story of Icarus and his flight to the Sun (is this possible?),
the story of the Montgolfier brothers and their...
Flight
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Historical fiction and story: the informed imagination
Primary History article
Historical stories and fiction give full rein to children's imaginations and creativity. As such, they are a standard, major element in pupils' historical authoring.Writing history stories is stimulating, enjoyable and challenging. When using their historical imaginations children as authors have to be disciplined. They must work within the strict parameters...
Historical fiction and story: the informed imagination
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Beyond the classroom walls: museums and primary history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Apart from the difficulty of getting hold of a hard copy of the new National Curriculum framework, museum educators have little to worry about in the results of the curriculum review. The framework reveals few changes that will affect what museums have...
Beyond the classroom walls: museums and primary history
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Visual image exemplar: Using pictures of Sutton Hoo objects
Exemplar
Please note: this lesson was produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The Sutton Hoo ship burial contained a king's ransom in gold and jewellery. Indeed, it contained the worldly and spiritual goods needed for the king's voyage into the next world.
But...
Visual image exemplar: Using pictures of Sutton Hoo objects
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Case Study: Effectively using the census in the classroom
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The British government introduced the census in 1801 to count every man, woman and child in the UK. The Census has been repeated, with increasing detail, every 10 years, with the exception of 1941, since then. This gives us an amazing...
Case Study: Effectively using the census in the classroom
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Teaching black British history through local archives
Primary History article
The huge benefits that local archives can bring to primary history are explored by Steven Kenyon. He illustrates this with a case study of Lancashire Archives. The central focus is on ways in which local history can support diversity in the curriculum by providing three examples – one for Key Stage...
Teaching black British history through local archives
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Creating drawings and environmental narratives for developing historical thinking
Primary History article
This article is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
Maria Vlachaki explores her home city of Thessaloniki, Greece with...
Creating drawings and environmental narratives for developing historical thinking
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The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR)
Primary History article
This article is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
In a celebration of the 200-year anniversary of the Stockton...
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR)
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History through Drama, A Teachers' Guide - Revisited
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
It is now some seventeen years since the publication of our original pamphlet by the Historical Association [HA] as part of the Teaching of History Series (Wilson and Woodhouse, 1990). This article offers a personal review...
History through Drama, A Teachers' Guide - Revisited
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Drama and history: a theory for learning
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
When I visit primary schools these days it heartens me to see how often drama is used in classroom teaching. Looking back over my own career, drama and role play have always been...
Drama and history: a theory for learning
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Pupils as apprentice historians (1) - History Detectives
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The historian R.G. Collingwood inspired the Schools Council History Project [SC HP] that transformed the teaching of history in Britain from the early 1970s. The SC HP argued that pupils should be ‘apprentice' historians who developed the...
Pupils as apprentice historians (1) - History Detectives
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Tudor Tempest
Lesson Plan
The pupils attend a large primary school where the classes are vertically grouped. The history focus for the summer term was the Tudors, although SATs three weeks into the term meant that the history emphasis was lost for a couple of weeks. Work on the Tudors began with explorations of...
Tudor Tempest
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Artificial intelligence’s ChatGPT program: a powerful tool for teaching 7- to 11-year-olds history
Primary History article
This article is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
In Jon Nichol’s ‘Voice from the past’, he considers how...
Artificial intelligence’s ChatGPT program: a powerful tool for teaching 7- to 11-year-olds history
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Trade and pilgrimage in the Abbasid Caliphate
Primary History article
The Abbasid Caliphate stretched from North Africa across to Afghanistan and the North West Frontier. Within the caliphate there were movements of people, goods and ideas. The golden period of this early Islamic caliphate was around 900 AD. As the caliphs were building a major trading empire across the Middle...
Trade and pilgrimage in the Abbasid Caliphate
