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Life by sources A to F: really using sources to teach AS history
Teaching History article
The work of Gary Howells will be familiar to many readers of Teaching History—indeed, his last article is heavily cited elsewhere in this edition. He presents here the case in favour of using sources at AS level (16-17 years old). Clearly, historians need to have some form of acquaintance with...
Life by sources A to F: really using sources to teach AS history
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Building Key Stage 5 students’ analysis of interpretations
Article
Students of A-level history are required to analyse and evaluate historical interpretations. Samuel Head found limitations in his Year 13 students’ understanding of how and why historians arrive at differing interpretations, which impeded their ability to analyse them. He set about tackling this with carefully sequenced planning and a processual model...
Building Key Stage 5 students’ analysis of interpretations
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Move Me On 180: feeling unprepared to start as NQT because of Covid-19
Teaching History feature
Una Marson had her training interrupted by school closures in response to Covid-19 and feels unprepared to start as an NQT.
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all...
Move Me On 180: feeling unprepared to start as NQT because of Covid-19
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Young Quills 2025 – the winners
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction for young people
Each year, the Historical Association runs the Young Quills, a competition for published historical fiction for children and young adults (14+). The Young Quills books for each year must be published for the first time in English in the year preceding the competition – so 2024 for this year’s selection....
Young Quills 2025 – the winners
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Sex, symbols, gods, devils: teaching Russian and Soviet cultures, gender, and sexualities
Partnership CPD for teachers of Russian and Soviet history at A-level and GCSE
What did it mean to be a Russian in the time of the Tsars and Soviets?
This one-day event examines the building blocks of Russian identity, asking how people expressed themselves through culture, gender, and sexuality.
These topics are some of the ‘intangibles’ of Russian and Soviet history. Hard to...
Sex, symbols, gods, devils: teaching Russian and Soviet cultures, gender, and sexualities
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Lesson sequence: Twentieth-century Europe
Article
This series of lessons has been designed to support the teaching of recent 20th century history at Key Stage 3. This sequence of lessons will enable students to learn some of the historical context to the European Union and Britain’s relationship with the European Union today. It combines overview and...
Lesson sequence: Twentieth-century Europe
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Lesson sequence: Twentieth-century Europe - taster lesson
Article
This series of lessons has been designed to support the teaching of recent 20th century history at Key Stage 3. This sequence of lessons will enable students to learn some of the historical context to the European Union and Britain’s relationship with the European Union today. It combines overview and...
Lesson sequence: Twentieth-century Europe - taster lesson
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Experienced Teacher Programme (ETP)
Immersive online course for experienced history teachers
Autumn 2025 Cohort
Start date: Wednesday 12 November, 5.15pm–6.30pm
Book Now
What is the Experienced Teacher Programme?
This six-week online course is designed to energise your teaching and help you engage with the history education community. In this programme you will access rich, subject-specific professional development designed specifically for experienced teachers: an...
Experienced Teacher Programme (ETP)
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How introducing cultural and intellectual history improves critical analysis in the classroom
Teaching History article
In his article in this journal just over a year ago, Steven Driver set out his vision for a less myopic range of topics in A-level coursework. In this edition, Driver demonstrates how he has built student enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, a topic which he had previously identified as...
How introducing cultural and intellectual history improves critical analysis in the classroom
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Cunning Plan 179: using TV producers’ techniques to make the most effective use of retrieval practice
Teaching History feature
Last year I was working with colleagues on a project examining Rosenshine’s principle of beginning lessons with a short review of previous learning.1 At the same time I was working with a history trainee who had been using recall quizzes as a starter with GCSE students. Following a lesson observation,...
Cunning Plan 179: using TV producers’ techniques to make the most effective use of retrieval practice
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Young Quills 2025
16th April 2025
Each year, the Historical Association runs Young Quills, a competition for published historical fiction for children and young adults (14+). The Young Quills books for each year must be published for the first time in English in the year preceding the competition – so 2024 for this year’s selection.
Our...
Young Quills 2025
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What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
Teaching History feature
One way of explaining what is meant by an enquiry question is to start with what it is not.
What's the Wisdom On... is a short guide providing new history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching. It...
What’s the wisdom on… enquiry questions
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On-demand webinar series: Mentoring beginning and early career history teachers in the secondary school
On-demand webinar series for secondary history mentors
What does this series cover?
Being an excellent history mentor is very different from being an excellent history teacher. In this series of five webinars, Laura London and Victoria Crooks outline the core principles that underpin the effective subject-specific mentoring of beginning and early career history teachers. With plenty of...
On-demand webinar series: Mentoring beginning and early career history teachers in the secondary school
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‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
Teaching History article
As history teachers we are used to encouraging pupils to think; enabling them to express thoughts with clarity both verbally and in written form. Yet, if history as a school subject becomes purely cognitive, then something is missing. History deals with human behaviour and therefore the affective and the emotional...
‘You should be proud about your history. They make you feel ashamed’: Teaching history hurts
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History Teacher Development Programme (HTDP)
Immersive online course for history teachers looking to develop beyond their early career
Book now
Autumn 2025 cohort (Closed)
Spring 2026 cohort
- Welcome meeting: Thursday 12 March, 4.45pm-5.45pm- Second meeting: Thursday 23 April, 4.45pm-5.45pm- Assessment meeting: Thursday 2 July, 4.45pm-5.45pm
What is the History Teacher Development Programme?
The History Teacher Development Programme is an immersive online programme aimed at history teachers who...
History Teacher Development Programme (HTDP)
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Webinar series: Coherence at Key Stage 4
HA webinar series for subject leaders and teachers of history
What does this series cover?
This series of webinars will consider coherence at Key Stage 4. We will reflect on using sequencing to establish coherence, how different categories of coherence can be used to inform our planning and delivery of GCSE, and how meaningful approaches to assessment will allow pupils’...
Webinar series: Coherence at Key Stage 4
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Exploring and Teaching Twentieth-Century History
A secondary education publication of the Historical Association
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
For a long time, history curricula on the 20th century prioritised...
Exploring and Teaching Twentieth-Century History
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Anatomy of enquiry: deconstructing an approach to history curriculum planning
Teaching History article
It is almost 20 years since Michael Riley first invited Key Stage 3 history teachers to ‘choose and plant’ their enquiry questions. Many members of the history education community have taken up that invitation, making use of overarching enquiry questions to structure students’ learning. But what is meant by enquiry...
Anatomy of enquiry: deconstructing an approach to history curriculum planning
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2024 – the winners
The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-15 years
Real history contains some of the most fanciful, exciting, worrying and incredible stories – learning about the past can open our eyes to how people have interacted with the world and each other for centuries. It is not surprising that alongside the real history most cultures and traditions have a...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2024 – the winners
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Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
HA Conference 2019 - Keynote Speech
This film was taken at the HA Annual Conference 2019 in Chester and features the HA's President: Professor Tony Badger who presented Friday's keynote lecture.
Find out more about the HA Conference.
In a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism and its democracy, it is perhaps surprising that family...
Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
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Young Historian Awards 2026 – take part (Secondary prizes)
History competition for students
The 2026 competition is now open. Entries close on 17 July 2026 (3 July for overseas entries).
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...
Young Historian Awards 2026 – take part (Secondary prizes)
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Film: Tackling superpower relations with lower-ability students
Secondary History Workshop Annual Conference 2019
This secondary workshop took place at at the Historical Association Annual Conference, Chester, May 2019.
It looked at ways of helping lower-ability students at GCSE access lesson and revision content based around superpower relations in the cold war, but is applicable to any subject area. Through a series of games and...
Film: Tackling superpower relations with lower-ability students
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Webinar series: Medieval political ideas and activity in global context
Funded webinar series for secondary teachers from the HA and the Noblesse Oblige research network
Medieval history is often a story of kings and their dates, primarily of England or, at best, western Europe. This funded webinar series aimed at secondary history teachers will introduce teachers to educational approaches to the Middle Ages that go beyond both kings and this narrow geographical range.
It takes...
Webinar series: Medieval political ideas and activity in global context
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Teaching Year 8 pupils to take seriously the ideas of ordinary people from the past
Teaching History article
Jacob Olivey wanted Year 8 to know that ordinary people in the nineteenth century constructed their own identities. In this reflection on how his practice developed in his training year, Olivey illustrates the importance of using historical scholarship in choosing foundational knowledge to teach. He shows how he used that...
Teaching Year 8 pupils to take seriously the ideas of ordinary people from the past
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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
