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Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the autumn of 2009 I agreed to contribute to a project looking at how Saltaire village, Bradford could be developed as an educational site. This is a very popular site visited by many local schools,...
Saltaire: Planning for an effective learning experience on a living site
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A Local History Toolkit
Article
IntroductionIn this short paper you will discover some of the tools for ‘doing' local history. They are based on where I live: you can get similar types of sources from where you live, work or teach. Your main source will be a local library or record office, but there is...
A Local History Toolkit
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Doing History with Objects
Article
IntroductionI was talking about ‘Doing History' with historical artefacts and objects with a young teacher when she closed the discussion with the statement ‘It's alright for you, you're old, your house is full of old things - how do I get them?' Alas - I had to agree with her,...
Doing History with Objects
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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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How to make a toy museum
Primary History article
Making a museum in your setting or classroom is easy and children can learn all kinds of historical skills as well as developing their mark making and writing. Tees Valley Museums are a consortium of seven venues across the Tees Valley. Together they have created online support to develop a museum...
How to make a toy museum
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Blending history and creative writing: imagining a lost Anglo-Saxon poem
Primary History article
Decoding a manuscript, exploring glittering archaeology, imagining the emotions and sensations of a battle, and learning Old English vocabulary. These are all tasks that we, as teachers of medieval literature in the English Department at King’s College London, have assigned to our undergraduate classes.
However, Key Stage 2 children can...
Blending history and creative writing: imagining a lost Anglo-Saxon poem
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Film: Making an effective History curriculum
Workshop Film: Yorkshire History Forum 2018
Richard Kennett is a senior leader, teacher, blogger, text-book author and member of HA secondary committee. In November 2018, Richard visited the Yorkshire History Forum to talk about his school’s experience of reviewing and re-planning their Key Stage 3 curriculum. This film is of Richard’s keynote speech at the Forum....
Film: Making an effective History curriculum
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Your Local Railway: a local history investigation in Key Stage 2
Primary History article
In this article Tim Lomas discusses one of the best resourced themes you can find: your local railway.
Railways make one of the best themes for a historical study. No place has ever been far from a railway station even if Dr Beeching wiped out one-third of the network in...
Your Local Railway: a local history investigation in Key Stage 2
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What can you do with a Victorian Trade Directory…?
Primary History article
What is a trade directory?
Trade directories are the equivalent of the telephone directory and the Yellow Pages. They were published on a county or city basis every year and contain detailed descriptions of every village and town in the county. They also contain pages and pages of advertisements, for...
What can you do with a Victorian Trade Directory…?
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Transition Key Stage 2 and 3
Primary History article
It can sometimes seem that the primary and secondary phases of education live in isolation from each other. After all, most primary teachers are generalists (despite sometimes having specialist experience of a particular curriculum area), having to turn their hands to all subjects on the curriculum whatever they feel about...
Transition Key Stage 2 and 3
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What makes good local history?
Primary History article
Everywhere has a past and learning how to capitalise on that for primary history can be both rewarding and challenging. Not only are aspects of the local area's history a requirement in their own right at both key stages, but these aspects can also help to tell the national story,...
What makes good local history?
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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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Using cemeteries as a local history resource
Primary History article
Why visit a cemetery as part of the history curriculum? Local studies now feature prominently in the primary history curriculum for both key stages. This development challenges teachers to find easilyaccessible, inexpensive and relevant resources on their doorstep. A rich resource which has traditionally been overlooked is the local churchyard...
Using cemeteries as a local history resource
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War memorials as a local history resource
Primary History article
War Memorials Trust (WMT) is the charity that works for the protection and conservation of war memorials in the UK. It defines a war memorial as ‘any physical object created, erected or installed to commemorate those involved in or affected by a conflict or war' (WMT 2009, ‘Definition of a...
War memorials as a local history resource
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Eweka's story: Benin and Big Picture History
Article
The prospect of teaching Benin as a non-European Study within the time frame 900-1300 AD is challenging! Traditional oral evidence suggests that the critical event during this period in Benin's past was a transition from the Ogiso to the Eweka Dynasty, named after its first Oba, which resulted in it...
Eweka's story: Benin and Big Picture History
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How do we ensure really good local history in primary schools?
Article
Primary History regularly contains articles from teachers who have taken some aspect of their locality and turned it into a really good activity. Hundreds of OFSTED reports as well, comment on really good practice in local history and children and their parents (perhaps, even more the grandparents) have got caught...
How do we ensure really good local history in primary schools?
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Questions you have always wanted to ask about... History and archaeology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Don Henson answers questions about history and archaeology.
Questions you have always wanted to ask about... History and archaeology
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Archaeology - An approach to teaching history at Key Stage 2. Curriculum history
Article
Alongside modern University buildings, at Beckett Park, (part of Leeds Metropolitan University), there is evidence of a monastic grange, a seventeenth century farmhouse, and an eighteenth century mansion which was extended in Victorian Times. The Beckett Park Archaeology Project was established in 1999 to give local children access to the...
Archaeology - An approach to teaching history at Key Stage 2. Curriculum history
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Primary History summer resource 2022: Museum visits
Primary member resource
This year's free summer resource for primary members looks at making the most of museum visits.
Museums and sites provide rich sensory environments that engage children's curiosity and allow them to explore through all their senses. Museums and sites transmit the past through a variety of perspectives, provide authenticity and present historical evidence. The experiential nature of museum visits encourages genuine...
Primary History summer resource 2022: Museum visits
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Using museums, libraries and art galleries
Primary History article
Lessons for Sustainablility: From the Experiences of Early Primary Student Teachers
Student teachers, local museums, libraries and art galleries. This article is based on the experiences of student teachers on a BA (Hons) Early Primary Education Programme, during their placements in local Museums, Libraries and Art Galleries.
We asked students...
Using museums, libraries and art galleries
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Scene shifting: Using visuals for chronology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Vivid pictures from and of the past, its material culture, can be stimulating and effective tools for teaching chronology.
Their use is not, however, straightforward. Children bring into school mental images and stereotypes about the past...
Scene shifting: Using visuals for chronology
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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
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Progression and coherence in history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
"The focus for much of the planning and the teaching is on pockets of knowledge at basic levels. Thus, the notion that pupils can progress and do better over time in history is not well established...
Progression and coherence in history
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Integration and cross-curricularity: History, Humanities And Social Studies
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
From the late 1960s until 1989 history was almost universally taught in primary schools as an element in integrated crosscurricular programmes, normally social studies or humanities.
The 1989/1990 National Curriculum: History radically changed this. It introduced...
Integration and cross-curricularity: History, Humanities And Social Studies
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Whose history is it anyway?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The main goals of educating children are meeting their educational and achievement needs. Herein is the challenge. Our classrooms are a cornucopia of diversity. The most prominent or acknowledged being gender, class, religion and ethnicity. Some...
Whose history is it anyway?
