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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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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?
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Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Even an inclusive national history curriculum can make Britain (and Europe) appear as the lynchpin of world history. Without a coherent structure for global history, young people remain unaware that continents beyond Europe have histories of...
Long ago or far away: the Global perspective
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Britain, Europe and the World?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
With the current debate on what content we should teach, and especially with the focus on pupils understanding the history of Britain before they leave school, it is perhaps pertinent to ask how this should link...
Britain, Europe and the World?
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Dimensions Of Britishness: Cultural Diversity and Ethnicity
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Teaching history is a balancing act between generalities and the particular. This article seeks to explore how Britishness and ethnic diversity relate to a broader understanding of diversity. We do not challenge the teaching of topics...
Dimensions Of Britishness: Cultural Diversity and Ethnicity
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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Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.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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From Kings To Queens to Sources and Evidence
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Until the mid 1930s the vast majority of children attended elementary schools, which went through from five to fourteen. In theory pre-war schools were left relatively free to teach in the way they chose as there...
From Kings To Queens to Sources and Evidence
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Children's Thinking: Developmental psychology and history education
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial note: Hilary Cooper outlines the main features of historical thinking. These ideas are embedded in the government's current requirements for teaching National Curriculum History [England]
Introduction
It is important that children develop a coherent, chronological...
Children's Thinking: Developmental psychology and history education
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Storytelling - how can we imagine the past?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Simon Schama's plea to "reinvent the art and science of storytelling in the classroom" made the media headlines and echoed centuries of educational history (Bage 1999). "It is, after all, the glory of our historical tradition...
Storytelling - how can we imagine the past?
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Principles for a history curriculum
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In the mid 1990s the Nuffield Foundation funded the development of a primary history curriculum for Yaroslavl in Russia. It was a contemporary curriculum, choosing issues and concepts of central concern to contemporary society and studying their...
Principles for a history curriculum
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Campaign: Make an impact and history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What is the role of history in the curriculum? Is it to give a traditional education or because history is a powerful teacher that we all can learn from? In my view well-taught history doesn't leave...
Campaign: Make an impact and history
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Guidance Pack: Building a Local Teacher Network
Information
We know that it is difficult for teachers to get to events too far from school. As a national charity, the HA recognises the importance and need to build strong regional networks for the history teaching community. Many of these are already existing or organically growing across the country at...
Guidance Pack: Building a Local Teacher Network
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Ofsted research report into history 2021
14th July 2021
Ofsted writes: The study of history can bring pupils into a rich dialogue with the past and with the traditions of historical enquiry.
In this report, Ofsted have:
outlined the national context in relation to history
considered curriculum progression in history, pedagogy, assessment and the impact of school leaders’ decisions on provision...
Ofsted research report into history 2021
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Making the most of your primary membership
Information
Making the most of your HA membership
HA membership offers much more than just your subscription to Primary History. As a member you can enjoy a wholistic package of benefits and resources designed to support you, whatever challenge you may face. With the vast array of support available it can...
Making the most of your primary membership
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Equality, representation and the census with Professor David Olusoga
Let's Count! Office for National Statistics and iChild's education resource programme
To support Census 2021, Office for National Statistics, together with education resource centre, iChild, have developed the free primary education resource programme Let’s Count! The programme includes 14 cross-curricular resources covering key areas of the English and Welsh primary curriculum. Let’s Count! has achieved accreditation from MEI, NATE and the Geographical Association....
Equality, representation and the census with Professor David Olusoga
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Your Primary CPD calendar Summer 2026
News Item
"CPD from the Historical Association is always high quality and provides expert guidance and support."
Primary teachers are expected to be experts in everything. At the HA we know how essential subject-specific CPD can be to support you. That’s why we offer a year-round programme of history training that supports primary teachers and subject...
Your Primary CPD calendar Summer 2026
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Assessment exemplar: children questioning artefacts
Exemplar
Questioning can be used in assessing childrens historical skills, as this example shows.The children were all in Year 4, and were withdrawn from their mixed Year 3/4 class for this lesson. They had covered several aspects of National Curriculum history, including over the past year the Egyptians and a local...
Assessment exemplar: children questioning artefacts
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Citizenship in Ancient Greece: case study
Case Study
This was a ten-week Ancient Greece unit, taught to a Year 6 mixed ability class of 34 children. There was a strong citizenship strand running through the whole programme, particularly the strands of political literacy and critical enquiry (see below).
Citizenship values and concepts, with teaching/learning activities in italics
Appreciation...
Citizenship in Ancient Greece: case study
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Lessons with strong literacy links
Lessons
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.
All history lessons have literacy links. The following lessons on this website have particularly strong links with literacy and the Literacy Hour.
Urban spaces near you - cross-curricular work history, literacy, art & design, and science
The Aztec experience persuasion genre: producing...
Lessons with strong literacy links
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Objects and visual image exemplar: toys and games
Exemplar
This was a half-term cross-curricular topic with a mixed Year 1/2 class. It focused on forces in science, storytelling in English, and objects and pictures in history. The children in the class had a wide range of abilities, with a large number having very poor expressive language. Therefore many of...
Objects and visual image exemplar: toys and games
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Story-telling and simulation exemplar: The Great Exeter Fish War of 1309
Exemplar
The lesson was taught to 44 Year 3 children in a first school in Exeter. It describes how a story was used to introduce a local history unit, and how we followed it up. To begin, we sat the children on the carpet and told them John Hooker's story about...
Story-telling and simulation exemplar: The Great Exeter Fish War of 1309
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Using sites and the environment exemplar: a visit to Petworth House, Sussex
Exemplar
A Year 5 class of 27 children were to visit the North Gallery at Petworth House in Sussex, where the 3rd Earl of Egremont kept his collection of sculptures and pictures. If the children were to learn I needed to give them a focus and a purpose.PreparationBeforehand, in the classroom,...
Using sites and the environment exemplar: a visit to Petworth House, Sussex
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Mystery of the Missing Cake
Lesson
Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated
History Mysteries at KS1 and KS2 The lessons centred round a mystery, the theft of a cake in an imaginary land where soft toys or characters from children's nursery rhymes live - Nursery...
Mystery of the Missing Cake
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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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Children writing accounts: the Battle of Trafalgar
Exemplar
Paul Newton's Year 6 class was investigating the Battle of Trafalgar as the introduction to a Victorian study. The sources Paul had chosen were an extract from the diary of Lieutenant Paul Harris Nicholas, of HMS Belleisle, and the famous painting showing the death of Admiral Nelson on the quarterdeck...
Children writing accounts: the Battle of Trafalgar
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Reading documents exemplar: Victorian school advertisement
Exemplar
Reading documents exemplar: Victorian school advertisement
