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Using historical fiction in the classroom
Article
If it is a story then what has that got to do with my teaching history? Well to begin with the best historical fiction is well researched. Good writers like Jill Paton Walsh take their research very seriously. She has commented that, "the writer may invent characters, conversations, circumstances, but...
Using historical fiction in the classroom
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Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2024 - Professor Catherine Hall
Article
The Medlicott Medal is awarded annually for outstanding services and contributions to history. This year the Medal went to Professor Catherine Hall, who is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London. Professor Hall has a long-established academic record in feminist history and empire and post-colonial history. She was a...
Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2024 - Professor Catherine Hall
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Teaching history through photographs in the internet and digital age
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Images allow us to step back in time and ask important historical questions such as ‘Were the Victorians just like us?' Growing digitisation and the spread of the internet allow teachers and learners...
Teaching history through photographs in the internet and digital age
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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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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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Insights from a year of leading the development of a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’
Primary History article
Raynville Primary School serves a highly disadvantaged area of West Leeds and we work hard to provide our children with the best opportunities to learn and enjoy their time with us. One jewel in the crown of our school’s curriculum is children’s historical learning as part of a knowledge-rich curriculum....
Insights from a year of leading the development of a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’
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Film: What's the wisdom on... Causation
Your Virtual History Department Meeting
We’ve been talking to our secondary school members and we know how difficult life is for teachers in the current circumstances, so we wanted to lend a helping hand.
'What’s the wisdom on…' is a brand-new and already popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect...
Film: What's the wisdom on... Causation
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The British Association for Local History (BALH)
History Network
The British Association for Local History is the national charity which promotes local history and serves local historians. Its purpose is to encourage and assist the study of local history as an academic discipline and as a rewarding leisure pursuit for both individuals and groups.
Local history enriches our lives...
The British Association for Local History (BALH)
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Case Study: Children's questions about historical pictures
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Pictures are an important source of evidence for children to use to find out about the past. They have an immediate impact and children of all ages and abilities find that they have...
Case Study: Children's questions about historical pictures
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Trees
Primary History article
This article includes a compilation of a series of articles about significant trees around Britain. It is hoped that this will prompt readers to explore their own environments, helping children to engage with and enjoy nature. Some of the trees in the article are designated as Great Trees. These were significant...
Trees
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Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2023 - Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch
Article
The Medlicott Medal is awarded annually for outstanding services and contributions to history. This year the Medal went to renowned historian and author Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch who is currently Professor of the Church at Oxford. His 2008 book History of Christianity: the first three thousand years is the leading authority on the history...
Filmed Lecture: Medlicott Lecture 2023 - Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch
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One of my favourite history places: Mount Fitchet Castle
Primary History feature
Alf Wilkinson explores Mount Fitchet Castle in Essex – one of his favourite history places.
As every schoolchild knows, William the Conqueror landed near Hastings in 1066, pursuing his claim to the throne of England. He was accompanied by the pope’s blessing, but also by an army of adventurers who...
One of my favourite history places: Mount Fitchet Castle
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A view from the KS1 classroom - investigating an artefact
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 saw some of the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and stood in awe at the skills of the craftsmen. Reminded so vividly of the...
A view from the KS1 classroom - investigating an artefact
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Primary history in the 21st century: Back to the past?
Primary History article
During my teaching of history I have been amazed by the asinine questions that children and adults ask about the subject matter. For example, a child once asked, ‘Sir, if Queen Cleopatra hadn't been bitten by the asp would she still be alive today?'. This question suggests that despite comprehensive...
Primary history in the 21st century: Back to the past?
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EYFS: What does good curriculum provision look like?
HA Primary Subject Leader Area
In this joint piece, Helen and Rob explore the EYFS Development Matters framework and its relevance to developing children’s understanding of the past. Helen suggests some key resources and approaches which work well in EYFS as well as some key questions to frame discussions with early years staff. Rob shares...
EYFS: What does good curriculum provision look like?
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British National Curricula For History 1989-2011
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The national history curricula for Northern Ireland, England and Wales have passed through various stages since working groups were set up in England and Wales in 1989. Developments have been distinct, with Northern Ireland having quite...
British National Curricula For History 1989-2011
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‘So why did they go into hiding?’ Anne Frank in her historical and social context
Primary History article
All too often Anne Frank becomes a symbol, used to show ‘the triumph of hope over evil’, even though she was killed during the Holocaust. Sometimes she is quoted utterly out of context to provide uplifting sentiments, or short phrases with redemptive messages.
What this lesson sets out to do...
‘So why did they go into hiding?’ Anne Frank in her historical and social context
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On-demand webinar: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Building and securing disciplinary thinking in primary history
Session 5: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
Handling sources is something all children learn to do in Key Stage 2 history, but often that crucial distinction between ‘source’ and ‘evidence’ is confused. No archaeologist digs up ‘evidence’. And labelling sources as either...
On-demand webinar: Helping children build secure evidential thinking
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Film: Why does the massacre of the Armenians in the First World War still get overlooked?
Virtual Branch
Why is the term 'Armenian Genocide' controversial, with many countries still not acknowledging a genocide at all? What do we know about the event of 1915 and the plight of the Armenian community in Turkey? How can we grapple with a history that many people want to forget? In this...
Film: Why does the massacre of the Armenians in the First World War still get overlooked?
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Film: Reimagining the Blitz Spirit
The mobilisation of World War II propaganda in our own times
Dr Jo Fox continued our virtual branch lecture series this July on the subject 'Reimagining the Blitz Spirit: the mobilisation of World War II propaganda in our own times'. Fox is the Director of the Institute of Historical Research and a well-known historian specialising in the history of propaganda, rumour and truth telling.
In this talk...
Film: Reimagining the Blitz Spirit
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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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Case Study: Constructing women's past and gender perspective
Primary History article
Pupils as Journalists
Background of the Study
Historiography has expanded to include all social groups and identities in the community. The social historiographical approach became extremely important in the 20th century (Cooper, 2007, pp. 41-2). In parallel with social historiography and related second wave feminism, women began to write their...
Case Study: Constructing women's past and gender perspective
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Key Stage 1 local history through fresh eyes
Primary History article
Upon approaching this article on teaching the local history component of the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1 I decided to focus on one school, to look at what they normally deliver, and to put forward suggestions that could be used to enhance their existing unit of study.
I visited Pencoys...
Key Stage 1 local history through fresh eyes
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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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Working with other subject leaders
HA Primary Subject Leader Area
History has often been described as an umbrella subject. This is because the nature of history means that we must learn something about the past and this something will encapsulate learning from other subject areas. However, while the history taught in your school can be enriched by other subject areas,...
Working with other subject leaders
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Evidenced based history teaching - teacher as researcher
Article
Introduction
Systematic, sustained provision of in-service courses has virtually disappeared. Increasingly, teachers' main source of professional development is the Internet. There is, however, a huge difference between reading about new approaches and skills and transforming that information, that understanding, into new ways of thinking, planning and teaching.
This is where...
Evidenced based history teaching - teacher as researcher
