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The Great Debate 2025: Speeches
Multipage Article
The final was held at the Vicar’s Hall at Windsor Castle on 29 March 2025, and attended by 20 finalists from across the UK. This year, each finalist needed to have taken part in a regional competition and one of three semi-final stages.
The competition question for this year was: How...
The Great Debate 2025: Speeches
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Great Debate Final 2025
14th April 2025
Winner:
Quinn Scott – Chesterton Community College, Cambridge
Runners up:
Anya Bensouiah – Kendrick School, Reading
Fred Bosley – The King’s School, Canterbury
Aimee Nelson – Bablake School, Coventry
Finalists:
Emily Tweddle, Earlston High School, Scottish Borders
Hannah Brearton, Upton Hall, Oxford
Rosie Thomson, The Maynard School, Exeter
Isabella Passarelli, Torquay Girls Grammar School,...
Great Debate Final 2025
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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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Young Quills shortlist for 2025
The HA's annual awards for best historical fiction for young people
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 aim...
Young Quills shortlist for 2025
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Doing History at University 2025
Thinking of studying history at university?
Booking closed
(Registration is via Cademy which opens in a new window. Please read the HA CPD terms and conditions before registering)
We are pleased to be hosting a Doing History at University event for students and teachers in partnership with the University of Sheffield. The aim of the event is to...
Doing History at University 2025
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2025
The Historical Association Historical Fiction Prize
Entries for this year's competition are now closed. The winners will be posted on this website in September/October. Next year's competition will open at the end of 2025.
Each year we are so impressed by the ever increasing number and standard of entries we receive around such a wide range of...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction Competition 2025
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Recorded webinar: Mapping uncertainty - Holocaust Memorial Day 2025
Retracing the trajectories of young survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust
Recorded webinar: Mapping uncertainty - Holocaust Memorial Day 2025
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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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The Great Debate 2026 – host a regional heat
The HA's public speaking competition open to school years 10–13
We are now looking for schools and venues across the country to host a regional heat in November, December 2025 or January 2026. If you are interested in hosting a heat, please fill out the form below.
The form will close on Sunday 15 June 2025. Successful applicants will be...
The Great Debate 2026 – host a regional heat
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Historical anniversaries calendar
Article
Historical anniversaries can be a great way to get children and young people interested in a subject or to raise awareness about a particular issue.
This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality history and education resources along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of...
Historical anniversaries calendar
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Recorded webinar: The post-emancipation Caribbean and the meanings of freedom
Article
This webinar examines the era of ‘post-emancipation’ in the Caribbean from around the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It interrogates the notion of ‘emancipation’ and asks what kind of ‘freedom’ did abolition bring to the formerly enslaved? How did colonial states and other authorities seek to regulate the lives of...
Recorded webinar: The post-emancipation Caribbean and the meanings of freedom
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Recorded webinar: The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
Dr Samantha Knapton, University of Nottingham
This webinar was recorded on 1 April 2025 as part of the HA's recent short course, ‘Britain and the Second World War – a global conflict’.
Dr Samantha K. Knapton is an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is an historian of central and east-central Europe,...
Recorded webinar: The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
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Webinar series: Direct history teaching
HA webinar series for history teachers at KS3 and KS4
What does this series cover?
In this webinar series, explore a direct approach to teaching history. Presenters Jacob Olivey and Mike Hill will advocate for ‘lean lessons’ that focus on reading, explanation, and discussion to build pupils’ historical knowledge and understanding – with no worksheets, activities, or group work in...
Webinar series: Direct history teaching
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Recorded webinar: Embracing messiness: the case for returning to disciplinary thinking in history classrooms
Webinar series: Embracing messiness: teaching disciplinary thinking in history
Embracing messiness: teaching disciplinary thinking in history
Session 1: Embracing messiness: the case for returning to disciplinary thinking in history classrooms
In recent years, disciplinary thinking has been somewhat overlooked as the 'what' of curriculum has taken the front seat for many schools. This introductory session will explain the rationale for...
Recorded webinar: Embracing messiness: the case for returning to disciplinary thinking in history classrooms
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Recorded webinar: Invisible assessment within an enquiry
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 1: Invisible assessment within an enquiry
This session explores the constant, routine assessment that goes on throughout the history lessons that make up a single enquiry – assessment that forms such a natural part of history teaching that it’s sometimes...
Recorded webinar: Invisible assessment within an enquiry
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Recorded webinar: Making history accessible: context and considerations
Webinar series: Making history accessible
Session 1: Making history accessible
This webinar provides an overview of recent key developments in SEND, including statutory guidance and regulations from Ofsted’s latest Education Inspection Framework and the SEND improvement plan. Drawing on SEND toolkits, we reflect on how to embed inclusive practice. This is explored in the context...
Recorded webinar: Making history accessible: context and considerations
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On-demand webinar: How might we go about assessing oracy in history classrooms?
Effective oracy in the secondary history classroom: Session 3
Webinar series: Effective oracy in the secondary history classroom
Session 3: How might we go about assessing oracy in history classrooms?Focus: Key Stages 3 and 4 | Presenter: Toby Dove
This session will put forward and then critique a framework for assessing oracy within a history classroom context. It will...
On-demand webinar: How might we go about assessing oracy in history classrooms?
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On-demand webinar: How can we support strong oracy in history classrooms?
Effective oracy in the secondary history classroom: Session 2
Webinar series: Effective oracy in the secondary history classroom
Session 2: How can we support strong oracy in history classrooms?Focus: Key Stages 3 and 4 | Presenter: Toby Dove
This session will explore different strategies for promoting and embedding good oracy within a history classroom. The session will consider the...
On-demand webinar: How can we support strong oracy in history classrooms?
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On-demand webinar: A history teacher’s 'markbook'
Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 6: A history teacher’s 'markbook'
This session will consider what it might be most useful for history teachers to keep a record of over the course of a year. Every time we read pupils’ work or listen to...
On-demand webinar: A history teacher’s 'markbook'
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On-demand webinar: A year in assessment
Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 5: A year in assessment
This session will put forward a couple of examples of what meaningful and useable assessment could look like across a school year at Key Stage 3. The session will explore the range of...
On-demand webinar: A year in assessment
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On-demand webinar: Assessing pupils’ answers to enquiry questions
Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 3: Assessing pupils’ answers to enquiry questions
This session will consider how history teachers can go about ‘marking’ pupils’ answers to enquiry questions in a way that values the pupils’ own voice and independent thinking, and avoids restricting...
On-demand webinar: Assessing pupils’ answers to enquiry questions
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On-demand webinar: Assessing the historical parts
Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 2: Assessing the historical parts
This session will explore how history teachers can isolate and assess individual components, or parts, of pupils’ historical knowledge, but without reducing this to an assessment of isolated facts. The session will include examples...
On-demand webinar: Assessing the historical parts
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On-demand webinar: Assessing the historical whole
Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Webinar series: Meaningful and useable assessment in the secondary history classroom
Session 4: Assessing the historical whole
This session will set out a range of tasks and questions, beyond answering an enquiry question, that require pupils to draw on the knowledge they have built cumulatively throughout the curriculum. The session will...
On-demand webinar: Assessing the historical whole
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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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Webinar series: Making history accessible
HA webinar series for subject leaders and teachers of history
What does this series cover and why should I attend?
In recent years, the UK’s SEND system has been under the spotlight. As numbers of students with identified special educational needs increase, attention has been given to how to best embed inclusive practice, enabling teachers to support all students to...
Webinar series: Making history accessible
