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Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
Teaching History article
Tom Bennett begins his article with a tale of a frustrating afternoon with Year 7. We’ve all been there. In his case, his frustration was caused by his finding a conceptual gap between how well his class wanted to do and the actual quality of their causal thinking. Bennett decided...
Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
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Exploring the importance of local visits in developing wider narratives of change and continuity
Rethinking religious rollercoasters
The authors of this article take a well-known structural framework for students’ thinking about the Reformation and give it a twist. Their Tudor religious rollercoaster is informed by local visits in their setting in Guernsey – an area where the local picture was not quite the same as the national...
Exploring the importance of local visits in developing wider narratives of change and continuity
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Teaching History 174: Structure
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article)
03 HA Secondary news
04 HA update
08 Austin’s narrative: an exploratory case study, with Year 8, into what kinds of feedback help students produce better historical narratives of the interwar years – Alex Rodker (Read article)
16 Cunning Plan: Teaching Year 8 to create and...
Teaching History 174: Structure
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Questions to help you review your KS3 curriculum
Guidance for history teachers
This resource is free to everyone. For access to our library of high-quality secondary history materials along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of history teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
With Ofsted incorporating curriculum into inspections from September 2019 and finally...
Questions to help you review your KS3 curriculum
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Young Historian Awards 2025 – take part (Secondary prizes)
History competition for students
Researching, writing and presenting ideas about a historical theme or period is one of the best parts about studying history. We want young school and college aged students to get the bug for writing about history in an incisive, interesting and critical way.
That is why each year the Historical...
Young Historian Awards 2025 – take part (Secondary prizes)
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Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
Teaching History journal article
Recognising the duty placed on all teachers by the 2010 Equality Act to nurture the development of a society in which equality and human rights are deeply rooted, Helen Snelson and Ruth Lingard were prompted to ask whether their history curricula really reflected the diverse pasts of all people in...
Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
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Young Historian Awards 2023 – the winners
Annual history competition for schools
Each year the Historical Association partners with The Spirit of Normandy Trust to recognise young historians who have shown excellent knowledge and demonstrated historical argument around a subject associated with a series of themes. The competition is divided into age brackets and the entry at secondary level is by essay,...
Young Historian Awards 2023 – the winners
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Secondary Committee biographies
Information
Find out more about the HA's committees here
Sally Burnham (committee chair)
Sally is a history teacher in a school in Lincolnshire and also works one day a week at the University of Nottingham on the History PGCE. Sally has been a Head of Department and is now a Lead...
Secondary Committee biographies
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Webinar series: Making substantive and disciplinary knowledge work together in the secondary history curriculum
HA on-demand webinar series for secondary history teachers
The last few years have, rightly, seen a lot of discussion about 'what' we include in the history curriculum. This has meant that many schools now teach a wider-ranging and more inclusive form of history. As this work has an impact, it is important to continue to think about how...
Webinar series: Making substantive and disciplinary knowledge work together in the secondary history curriculum
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‘Its ultimate pattern was greater than its parts’
Teaching History journal article
Identifying the challenges his students faced both with recall and analysis of the content they had learned for their GCSE course, Ed Durbin devised a solution which focused not on exam skills and revision lessons, but on using Key Stage 3 to build the ‘hinterland’ of contextual knowledge and causal...
‘Its ultimate pattern was greater than its parts’
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Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
Teaching History journal article
Puzzled by the shrugs and unimaginative responses of his students when asked certain counterfactual questions, James Edward Carroll set out to explore what types of counterfactual questions would elicit sophisticated causal explanations. During his pursuit of the ‘gold standard’ of counterfactual reasoning, Carroll drew upon theories of academic history in...
Couching counterfactuals in knowledge when explaining the Salem witch trials with Year 13
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Ralph Sadleir: Hackney's Local Hero or Villain: Examples of learning opportunities in museums and historic sites at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
The benefits of learning in historical sites and museums are well documented. De Silva, Smith and Tranter wrote in Teaching History 102, Inspiration and Motivation Edition, about exploring identity through the biography of a house, suggesting the possibility of teaching from the local to capture the national picture. However, students...
Ralph Sadleir: Hackney's Local Hero or Villain: Examples of learning opportunities in museums and historic sites at Key Stage 3
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The Great Debate 2025
The HA's public speaking competition open to school years 10-13
What is the Great Debate?
The Great Debate is a public speaking competition where students have 5 minutes to present their speech arguing their answer to the question.
Over the past couple of years the competition has been growing in size, to encourages many young people to get involved as possible...
The Great Debate 2025
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History-specific support – for every career stage
Information
Register for the HA's SLT newsletter for more
Our biannual SLT newsletter will give you up-to-date information and support on managing history including updates on current issues, priorities and policy issues. Register here
Subject-specific support is an essential investment in your teaching staff, equipping them with the knowledge and...
History-specific support – for every career stage
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Young Historian Awards 2022 – the winners
Annual history competition for schools
This was a very positive year for the Young Historian Awards. The judging panel continue to be delighted by the quality of the work submitted in a variety of formats by young historians. Although entry levels were lower than during the pandemic, the data confirms that, with the exception of...
Young Historian Awards 2022 – the winners
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Popular revolt and the rise of early modern states
Historian article
In the 1960s and 1970s, historians and sociologists who were not specialists in the Middle Ages constructed models of pre-industrial crowds and revolt to understand the distinctiveness of modern, post-French Revolutionary, Europe. Foremost among these scholars were George Rudé, a historian of eighteenth century England and France, and Charles Tilly,...
Popular revolt and the rise of early modern states
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2024
The Historical Association Historical Fiction Prize
Entries to the 2024 competition are now closed.
Each year we are so impressed by the ever increasing number and standard of entries we receive around such a wide range of historical periods and settings. You can take a look at some of last year’s winning entries here.
Unleash the creativity...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2024
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Announcing the winners of the Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2022
The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-19 years
The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-19 years
After another year of high-quality fiction writing from our young people, we are pleased to announce that the winners in all of the categories are:
School Years 5-6:
Eloise Burt – The HMS Titanic. Old Priory Junior Academy, Plymouth
Hannah Tan...
Announcing the winners of the Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2022
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Corporate secondary membership: a view from SLT
By Simon Harrison, Headteacher
From history teacher to Headteacher, in over 25 years of teaching I have filled most school roles; history teacher, in the ‘middle’ as a subject leader, an Advanced Skills Teacher, senior leader and eventually Headteacher. I have learned a lot about leadership in Secondary Schools along the way, and becoming...
Corporate secondary membership: a view from SLT
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Looking through the keyhole at Birkenhead from 1900 to 1950 with Year 7
Journal article
Matt Jones wanted to harness the power of local history to help his students understand the profound social changes experienced across Britain in the first half of the twentieth century.
While he hoped that the personal stories of six families in Birkenhead would help to humanise abstract concepts such as...
Looking through the keyhole at Birkenhead from 1900 to 1950 with Year 7
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Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
Journal article
History teachers have frequently made recourse to character cards as a device to help young people, each assigned specific roles, to understand how different kinds of people responded in different ways to particular situations in the past.
Edward FitzGerald builds on this tradition, demonstrating the value of using rich historical...
Defying the ‘constrictive grip of typologies’
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“They Ought to Know the Achievements of the Ancient Greeks”
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
This paper focus on the role of archaeology and material culture in supporting national narratives for younger generations, examining the ideas and perceptions of prospective teachers of Greek Primary Education. Firstly, the contribution...
“They Ought to Know the Achievements of the Ancient Greeks”
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The Past, the Present and the Future of the Economic Crisis, through Greek Students’ Accounts of their History
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
This is an analysis of 97 written questionnaires given to university students’, prospective teachers’. Students were asked first to narrate the Greek state’s history, second to make predictions about the future. It took...
The Past, the Present and the Future of the Economic Crisis, through Greek Students’ Accounts of their History
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HA Blog Watch
Selected history education blogs
We've collated some of the best history education blogs here. The list isn't exhaustive so if there is a great history education blog out there that is not on this list – let us know!
One Big History Department
HA Secondary Committee blog
One Big History Department (OBHD) has been...
HA Blog Watch
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Young Quills winners 2022
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction for young people
We are delighted to announce the 2022 competition winners for the Historical Association’s Young Quills Awards for Historical Fiction for children and young adults:
Ages 5–9 years category:
Winner: The Chessmen Thief by Barbara Henderson, Pokey Hat, Cranachan PublishingHighly commended: The Valley of Lost Secrets by Lesley Parr, Bloomsbury Publishing
Ages 10–13...
Young Quills winners 2022
