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Into the unknown: changing technology and the history classroom
Teaching History article
John Simkin has an important tale to tell. He lived through the earliest forays of history teachers into computer technology in the classroom and he pioneered influential approaches through software publishing projects. His story of classroom teachers overcoming obstacles, battling scepticism and taking responsibility for forging the future is one...
Into the unknown: changing technology and the history classroom
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Virtual Branch: Birds and British History
Article
In his recent book The Cuckoo's Lea Michael J Warren provides a exploration of how birds are entwined with British history, particularly in our place names.
Join us for an exclusive Q&A with the author to weave together literature, history and ornithology and discover a fascinating heritage that matters deeply now when so...
Virtual Branch: Birds and British History
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Resource sharing hub for home learning
2nd April 2020
We know how hard life has been for teachers and schools in recent weeks. Materials have had to be put online hastily to provide students with home learning activities in the light of a fast-moving situation. At present, there is little indication as to how long schools will remain closed...
Resource sharing hub for home learning
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Teaching History 194: Climate and Environment
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
This edition of HA's Teaching History journal is free to download via the link at the bottom of the page (individual articles are also free to access).
For a subscription to Teaching History (published quarterly), plus access to our library of high-quality secondary history materials along with free or discounted CPD and...
Teaching History 194: Climate and Environment
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Thinking makes it so: cognitive psychology and history teaching
Teaching History article
What, exactly, is learned knowledge - and why does it matter in history teaching?
Michael Fordham seeks to use the general tenets of cognitive psychology to inform the debate about how history teachers might get the best from their students, in particular in considering the role of memory. Fordham surveys the latest research concerning memory while also arguing that remembering does matter in history...
Thinking makes it so: cognitive psychology and history teaching
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Teaching Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history
Article
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are the largest minority ethnic group in some communities (and therefore in some schools) in the UK. Yet the past of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller people may rarely be part of history lessons. The result is that pupils of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage may not...
Teaching Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history
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Teaching History 138: Enriching History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 Alf Wilkinson: Making cross-curricular links in history: some ways forward (Read article)
08 James Woodcock: Disciplining cross-curricularity? Cottenham Village College history department's inter-disciplinary projects: an evaluation (Read article)
13 Michael Monaghan: Having ‘Great Expectations' of Year 9 Inter-disciplinary work between English and history...
Teaching History 138: Enriching History
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On-demand webinar: Teaching neurodivergent students to succeed at GCSE History and beyond
Webinar series: Making history accessible
Webinar series: Making history accessible
Session 3: Teaching neurodivergent students to succeed at GCSE History and beyond
This session will offer practical strategies teachers can use to support and challenge neurodivergent students at GCSE. Covering the importance of scaffolding and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, Kate Wright will offer a...
On-demand webinar: Teaching neurodivergent students to succeed at GCSE History and beyond
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On-demand webinar: Showcasing history teaching and learning in special schools
Webinar series: Making history accessible
Webinar series: Making history accessible
Session 4: Showcasing history teaching and learning in special schools
From a special school perspective, Sally Lonsdale and Lucy Bennett explore how history is encountered at their school. With secondary students working at Key Stage 1 age related expectations, history is seen as an ‘enriching...
On-demand webinar: Showcasing history teaching and learning in special schools
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Polychronicon 156: The transnational history of the First World War
Teaching History feature
With the publication in 2014 of the Cambridge History of the First World War, we enter a new transnational phase in the historical understanding of the conflict. The reasons why this change has come about are evident.
The first is that there are more transnational historians writing the history of...
Polychronicon 156: The transnational history of the First World War
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Tracking the health of history in England’s secondary schools
Teaching History article
In 2009 the Historical Association conducted the first of what has become an annual survey of history teachers in England. Its aim was to get beyond bare statistics relating to subject uptake and examination success to examine the reality of history teaching across all kinds of schools and to map...
Tracking the health of history in England’s secondary schools
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Teaching history's big pictures: including continuity as well as change
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
School history teachers are not the only ones wrestling with the challenges of building ‘big pictures' that do justice to complexity. In this article, social and cultural historian Penelope Corfield puts our interest in long-term...
Teaching history's big pictures: including continuity as well as change
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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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A local history toolkit
Toolkit
Produced by the Historical Association for the National Literacy Trust's "The Olden Times" newspaper resource, May 2011. For more recent resources on local history enquiries see:
Local significant individuals
Local history scheme of work: your local high street
Local history scheme of work: transport
Incorporating local history into a scheme...
A local history toolkit
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Teaching History regular features
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
Teaching History includes a number of regular features for secondary history teachers. On these pages you can access all recent and many older editions of each of these features:
What's the Wisdom On provides a short guide to an aspect of history teaching.
What have historians been arguing about... (formerly Polychronicon) aims to help...
Teaching History regular features
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From Cyrus to Cleopatra: The ancient history adventure
HA webinar series in partnership with The Classical Association
Have you thought about offering Ancient History at Key Stage 3, GCSE or A-level?
This webinar series, offered in collaboration with the Classical Association, explores how ancient history can be embedded across the key stages at secondary level. Across this series, we will show you how teaching ancient history is...
From Cyrus to Cleopatra: The ancient history adventure
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Film: A short history of Islamic thought
Article
In his book of the same name, A short history of Islamic thought, Dr Fitzroy Morrissey provides a concise introduction to the origins and sources of Islamic thought, from its beginnings in the 7th century to the current moment.
In this talk he explores the major ideas and introduces the...
Film: A short history of Islamic thought
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Podcast: The Historical Medicalization of Homosexuality & Transvestism
Podcast
In this podcast, Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester, looks at the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism.
1. Introduction: the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism
HA Members can listen to the full podcast here
Suggested Reading:
Tommy Dickinson (2015) "Curing Queers": MentalNurses and their Patients 1935-1974.
Peter Conrad &...
Podcast: The Historical Medicalization of Homosexuality & Transvestism
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Teaching Britain’s ‘civil rights’ history
Teaching History article
Hannah Elias and Martin Spafford begin this article by explaining why they believe it is essential for young people to learn about the ‘heterogeneous, rich and complex’ history of the struggle for civil rights in Britain. Drawing on their diverse experiences of researching, writing and teaching history at school and university...
Teaching Britain’s ‘civil rights’ history
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On-demand webinar: Helping the past take shape with historical enquiry
Embracing messiness: teaching disciplinary thinking in history
Embracing messiness: teaching disciplinary thinking in history
Session 5: Helping the past take shape with historical enquiry
This session focuses into enquiry and on second order concepts. It offers practical advice to how second order concepts can be introduced in a way that is historically rigorous. We will explicitly address...
On-demand webinar: Helping the past take shape with historical enquiry
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Hosting teacher development at historical sites: the benefits for classroom teaching
Journal article
Many previous contributors to Teaching History have demonstrated the power of site visits to stimulate young people’s engagement and enrich their understanding of history. It is usually assumed, however, that the young people themselves will have the opportunity to visit the site in question – an assumption that cannot always...
Hosting teacher development at historical sites: the benefits for classroom teaching
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Film Series: Active Learning & History
Multipage Article
Active learning strategies are engaging but, far more importantly, they make history learning memorable, they encourage resilience and independence, and they are an excellent way to make complex history accessible for all. When used with clear purpose and with knowledge of specific students' needs, they are a tried and tested...
Film Series: Active Learning & History
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Move Me On 155: Historical Intepretation vs. Opinion
Teaching History feature
This issue's problem: Helena Swannick tends to treat differences between historical interpretations simply as matters of opinion.
Helena Swannick is a career changer who has decided to come into teaching after many years' working in human resources and some time at home caring for two young children. Her degree was a...
Move Me On 155: Historical Intepretation vs. Opinion
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History Teaching in Belarus: Between Europe and Russia
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017 ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
This paper is devoted to social uses of history teaching and history textbooks. It analyses, first, how the history of the lands of Belarus, at the crossroads between Europe and Eurasia, was...
History Teaching in Belarus: Between Europe and Russia
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Using family history to provoke rigorous enquiry
Teaching History article
The idea of using ‘little stories' to illuminate the ‘big pictures' of the past was creatively explored in Teaching History 107, which offered teachers a wealth of detailed vignettes with which to kindle young people's interest and illuminate major historical events. Paul Barrett builds on the ideas explored in that...
Using family history to provoke rigorous enquiry
