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Found 900 results matching 'brief history' within Secondary > Curriculum Support > Periods and Themes   (Clear filter)

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  • Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain

      Classic Pamphlet
    Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain: From the accession of the House of Trastámara to Ferdinand and IsabellaThe history of late medieval Spain is usually seen as a tiresome introduction to the reigns of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Modern historians tend to portray them as ‘new monarchs',...
    Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain

  • Using the concept of place to help Year 9 students to visualise the complexities of the Holocaust

      Teaching History article
    Inspired by the work of the social and cultural historian Tim Cole, Stuart Farley decided to look again at the way he teaches the Holocaust. He wanted to focus on the geographical concept of place as a way of enabling his Year 9 students to build far more diverse narratives,...
    Using the concept of place to help Year 9 students to visualise the complexities of the Holocaust

  • Papal Election and Murder

      Historian article
    Before the smoke clears: The longest papal election in history was marred by a brutal murder Papal elections never used to be so short or easy. In 1268 Pope Clement IV died and the cardinals, divided between French and Italian factions, would be deadlocked for the next three years over...
    Papal Election and Murder

  • Cathars and Castles in Medieval France

      Historian article
    Almost exactly 800 years ago, in September 1213, a decisive battle was fought at Muret, about ten miles south-west of Toulouse. King Peter II of Aragon, fighting with southern allies from Toulouse and elsewhere, faced an army largely made up of northern French crusaders who had invaded the region at the...
    Cathars and Castles in Medieval France

  • English Puritanism

      Classic Pamphlet
    When the modern world was christened Puritanism appeared as a bad fairy and bestowed upon it certain dubious gifts: capitalism, democracy, America. This is a fairy story, but like all fairy stories it contains a small grain of truth. But what was Puritanism? Already in the seventeenth century a critic...
    English Puritanism

  • Year 9 use sources to explore contemporary meanings and understandings of appeasement

      Teaching History article
    After reflecting on the difference between his study of source extracts at university and how he was using source extracts in the classroom, Jonathan Sellin went in search of a new way to help his pupils to situate sources in context. Finding inspiration in the work of intellectual historian Quentin...
    Year 9 use sources to explore contemporary meanings and understandings of appeasement

  • Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12

      Teaching History article
    In this article Sophie Harley-McKeown identifies and addresses her Year 12 students’ blind spot over agentive explanation. Noticing that the examination board to which she teaches uses ‘motivations’ rather than ‘aims’ prompted her to consider whether her students really knew what that meant. Finding that her students’ causal explanations tended...
    Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12

  • The Tudor Court

      Classic Pamphlet
    In 1976, in one of his challenging Presidential addresses to the Royal Historical Society, Professor Geoffrey Elton drew attention to the importance of the court as a ‘point of contact' between the Tudors and their subjects. It was, he suggested, a central and essential aspect of personal government, but in...
    The Tudor Court

  • The strange death of King Harold II: Propaganda and the problem of legitimacy in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings

      Historian article
    How did King Harold II die at the Battle of Hastings? The question is simple enough and the answer is apparently well known. Harold was killed by an arrow which struck him in the eye. His death is depicted clearly on the Bayeux Tapestry in one of its most famous...
    The strange death of King Harold II: Propaganda and the problem of legitimacy in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings

  • Cunning Plan 177: teaching about life in Elizabethan England by looking at death

      Teaching History feature
    ‘We already did the Tudors in primary school’ was the most frequent comment made by students about our Year 7 scheme of learning in our annual review. Students reported covering the Tudors at least once, sometimes twice, before reaching secondary school and they had clearly not faced extensive further study...
    Cunning Plan 177: teaching about life in Elizabethan England by looking at death

  • Charles XII

      Classic Pamphlet
    The reputation of Charles XII who became king of Sweden before he was fifteen years old and had the responsibility of absolutist goverment thrust upon him within the next six months - contrary to the plans laid down for him by his father - has tended to attract political rather...
    Charles XII

  • Widening the early modern world to create a more connected KS3 curriculum

      Teaching History article
    Readers of this journal will be familiar with a number of ways of approaching the Tudors. Kerry Apps provides here an article detailing her concerns about the differences between what she had been delivering at Key Stage 3 and the broader, connected experience she had as an undergraduate historian. How...
    Widening the early modern world to create a more connected KS3 curriculum

  • Louis XIV

      Classic Pamphlet
    Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 and became King on May 14 1643 at the age of four years and eight months on the death of his father Louis XIII. He attended the Conseil d'en haut from 1649 when he was eleven years old. He announced his coming...
    Louis XIV

  • Polychronicon 148: The Wars of the Roses

      Teaching History feature
    There are few periods in our history from which we turn with such weariness and disgust as from the Wars of the Roses. Their savage battles, their ruthless executions, their shameless treasons seem all the more terrible from the pure selfishness of the ends for which men fought, the utter...
    Polychronicon 148: The Wars of the Roses

  • The dialogic dimensions of knowing and understanding the Norman legacy in Chester

      Teaching History article
    Michael Bird and Thomas Wilson focus their attention directly on the voices of pupils, in dialogue with their teacher and with each other, as they draw inferences from differing sources about the Norman legacy in Chester. By carefully examining dialogue stimulated by these sources, Bird and Wilson demonstrate not only...
    The dialogic dimensions of knowing and understanding the Norman legacy in Chester

  • Polychronicon 175: Paris 1919 – a century on

      Teaching History feature
    The Paris peace conference resulted in five major treaties, each with one of the defeated Central Powers. Of these the most consequential was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, signed on 28 June 1919, which was denounced by the young economist John Maynard Keynes in his bestselling polemic The Economic...
    Polychronicon 175: Paris 1919 – a century on

  • Engaging Year 9 with Victorian debates about 'progress'

      Teaching History article
    Jonathan White wanted to fill a gap in his students' knowledge of the history of ideas. Despite the appearance of Marx, Smith, Darwin and Malthus in the department's workscheme for Year 9, his Year 13 students appeared to lack any meaningful grasp of these nineteenth-century intellectual reference points. White therefore...
    Engaging Year 9 with Victorian debates about 'progress'

  • Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women

      Teaching History feature
    The beginnings of the nationally organised campaign for women’s suffrage began with suffragists’ orchestration of the petition to Parliament in favour of female suffrage in 1866. The petition contained almost 1,500 names from across the country and was presented to parliament by the Liberal MP John Stuart Mill; it was...
    Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women

  • Cunning Plan 139: Victorian debates about progress

      Teaching History feature
    How can we interest students in the world of ideas? How can we help them to see how important ideas were in shaping and reflecting the world of the Victorians? Working with the overarching enquiry question, ‘Why did some Victorians believe in progress in the nineteenth century and others did not?’ I devised...
    Cunning Plan 139: Victorian debates about progress

  • Alexander II

      Classic Pamphlet
    The ‘great reforms' of Tsar Alexander II (1855-81) are generally recognised as the most significant events in modern Russian history between the reign of Peter the Great and the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The most important of Alexander's reforms, the emancipation of he serfs in 1861, has been described...
    Alexander II

  • Francis I and Absolute Monarchy

      Classic Pamphlet
    Francis I of France reign lasted for more than thirty years and coincided with movements as significant as the Renaissance and the Reformation. Text-books are apt to gloss over the domestic history of France before the outbreak of the Wars of Religion and convey the impression that Francis was more...
    Francis I and Absolute Monarchy

  • Arnold Wilkins: Pioneer of British Radar

      Historian article
    Whenever British radar is discussed the name that usually comes to mind is that of Robert Watson Watt. Our history books and our dictionaries of biography consistently attribute the discovery of radar in Britain solely to Watson Watt, with little or no mention of the key role played by his...
    Arnold Wilkins: Pioneer of British Radar

  • The Olympics - politics, impact and legacy - its not just about the sport

      Article
    2024 is an Olympic Games year. Held every four years (with the exception of during the World Wars and Covid-19 restrictions), the modern Olympics is the largest international sporting event in the world. However, historically it has not always been just the sports that are played and the athletes’ performances...
    The Olympics - politics, impact and legacy - its not just about the sport

  • Polychronicon 171: Policing in Nazi Germany

      Teaching History feature
    The nature of policing in Nazi Germany is a subject which continues to fascinate historians. The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) was an integral part of the Nazi terror system but historians have been and still are at odds as to how it actually functioned. Areas of debate have focused on the...
    Polychronicon 171: Policing in Nazi Germany

  • The Personal Rule of Charles I 1629-40

      Classic Pamphlet
    Historians are often accused of viewing the past with hindsight, or of being wise after the event. Not being prophets or soothsayers, we have to look backwards in time because we cannot look forwards. The real question is from what vantage point or perspective we view a particular part of...
    The Personal Rule of Charles I 1629-40