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Teaching the Ancient Greeks: an introduction
Reference guide
This resource 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
Please note: this guide was written before the new National Curriculum...
Teaching the Ancient Greeks: an introduction
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Storytelling: Socrates, Alcibiades, and Athenian democracy
Lesson Plan
Nigel Parker's Year 5 class had just made a start on the Ancient Greeks. In this lesson we began with Athenian democracy, where the free adult male citizens decided everything, even ostracizing generals they didn't like.The story of SocratesI told the children some of the story of Socrates, who taught...
Storytelling: Socrates, Alcibiades, and Athenian democracy
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Ancient Egypt
Reference guide for primary
This resource 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
Please note: this guide was written before the new National Curriculum...
Ancient Egypt
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Drama: Ancient Egypt - Akhenaten
Exemplar
This exemplar outlines a lesson John Fines taught to a class of Year 3 children. He was visiting them for the first time to do some drama work. The children already knew a great deal about the Ancient Egyptians and were also used to learning through drama. John writes:After a...
Drama: Ancient Egypt - Akhenaten
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Victorian Britain: a brief history
Reference guide for primary
Victorian era | Questions | Industrial revolution | Social reforms | Empire | Teaching the Victorians | Citizenship | Victorian achievements | Key concepts
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This resource is free for everyone
For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and...
Victorian Britain: a brief history
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Visual image and discussion exemplar: questioning a photograph
Exemplar
Almost more than any other source a photograph provides an incentive to dig, to burrow, to stretch, to tease out, to investigate and follow up leads.
A good starter activity. We used a photo in this way to begin our Britain since 1930 unit with a mixed Year 5/6 class....
Visual image and discussion exemplar: questioning a photograph
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Britain and the Wider World in Tudor Times
Reference
The wider world: The Tudors ruled Britain during a fascinating and fast-changing century. Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, and Europeans sailed across the oceans, reaching the East, discovering the New World of America, establishing colonies, and circumnavigating the world for the first time (Ferdinand Magellan in 1517, and Francis...
Britain and the Wider World in Tudor Times
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Changes within Living Memory
Reference guide for primary
This resource 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
Overview
Post-1930s Britain has been transformed by a technological revolution...
Changes within Living Memory
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Aztec Experience
Lesson Plan
Take a holiday with the Aztecs! Children design holiday brochures.
History providing a context for literacy. Demonstration and modelling of the holiday brochure genre, and the transfer of understanding of the generic form into an historical context.
Pupils produced their own brochures giving information about life in the Aztec capital,...
Aztec Experience
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Olympic Games
Lesson Plan
This was the fourth lesson in a ten-week unit about the ancient Greeks. We had already looked at Homer's Iliad, examining Greek ideas about heroes and roles; investigated the evidence for the Trojan War; and used topic books to identify and classify the main features of ancient Greek life. Throughout...
Olympic Games
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Children in the Second World War
Lesson Plan
This resource 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
These lessons with Year 6 children at a voluntary-aided primary...
Children in the Second World War
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Discussion and debate exemplar: Columbus: was he a hero?
Short Lesson Exemplar
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Lynn Cowell's Year 2 class had been doing a topic on a famous person from the past: Christopher Columbus. It began with a story and picture sequencing, followed by some research into the life of Columbus.
Lynn had invited Ray Verrier...
Discussion and debate exemplar: Columbus: was he a hero?
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Topic book blitz: asking and answering questions and Tudor Britain
Short Lesson Exemplar
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
The topic book blitz approach, where children freely scan a range of topic books, provides both a marvellous stimulus to curiosity and questioning, and an authentic purpose for using research skills.
One of our key principles is Questions and Questioning.In this...
Topic book blitz: asking and answering questions and Tudor Britain
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A view from the classroom
Article
The end of one school year and the beginning of a new one is always a time for reflection. If it coincides with moving classrooms and changing key stage too, as I am from KS1 to KS2, there is a good opportunity to sort out resources, and plan a fresh...
A view from the classroom
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Mystery Suitcase
Lesson Plan exemplar
Please note: this lesson was produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
This resource 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...
Mystery Suitcase
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Castles: homes in the past
Lesson Plan
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The key stage 1 classes were looking at castles in terms of homes in the distant past. This was the second lesson- in the first we debated and decided the best place to build a castle....
Castles: homes in the past
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The Great Plague of London (KS1)
Article
This resource 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
This was originally part of a 7-week unit looking at...
The Great Plague of London (KS1)
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Key Stage 2-3 History Transition Project
Guide to KS2-KS3 Transition
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum. For more recent resources on Transition KS2-KS3 please see:
Transition KS2–KS3 (Primary History article, 2021)
Smooth Transitions: Key Stage 2 to 3 (Primary History article, 2020)
Transition Key Stage 2 and 3 (Primary History article, 2016)
Before 1066 & All That: Transition between...
Key Stage 2-3 History Transition Project
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Reading Sources Using Textbreaker
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Pages 8-9 detail how functional literacy's concept of genre resulted in the creation of Textbreaker to empower pupils to ‘read' all historical sources, but especially those previously thought too hard for them to tackle. Below is...
Reading Sources Using Textbreaker
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Culture Shock: The Arrival of the Conquistadores in Aztec Mexico
Historian article
When the Spanish Conquistadores arrived in Mexico during the early sixteenth century there were many repercussions for the indigenous people. Their conversion to Christianity and the sacking of their temples are two of the most well known examples. However, it is often forgotten that the Aztecs had only a pictorial...
Culture Shock: The Arrival of the Conquistadores in Aztec Mexico
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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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Historical Enquiries and Interpretations
Transition Training Session 1
This is the first of 5 sessions arising from the 2005 KS2-KS3 History Transition Project:
Transition training session 1: Historical Enquiries & Interpretations
Transition training session 2: Using ICT in the teaching of history
Transition training session 3: Extended writing in history
Transition training session 4: Joan of Arc -...
Historical Enquiries and Interpretations
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The Government of the Roman Empire
Classic Pamphlets
The Government of the Roman Empire, as everyone knows, was autocratic, and, like all autocracies, it was ‘tempered by assassination' or by military revolution. The emperor ruled through an imperial service, at once civil and military, in which several grades, corresponding to the social classes of the empire, were always...
The Government of the Roman Empire
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Confounding expectation at Key Stage 3: flower-songs from an indigenous empire
Teaching History article
In this article Nicolas Kinloch examines aspects of an indigenous empire: that of Aztec Mexico. He attempts to persuade a group of mixed-ability Year 8 students to examine - and question - some of the assumptions they bring to the study of this empire. Their attitudes reflect quite widespread beliefs...
Confounding expectation at Key Stage 3: flower-songs from an indigenous empire
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Case Study: Working with gifted and talented children at an Iron Age hill fort in north Somerset
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The phone call was over - manna from heaven. The opportunity to work with a ‘real' archaeologist on a ‘real' Iron Age site seemed far too good to be true. The cluster of eight South...
Case Study: Working with gifted and talented children at an Iron Age hill fort in north Somerset
