-
How should women’s history be included at Key Stage 3?
Teaching History article
Susanna Boyd ‘discovered’ women’s history while studying for her own history degree, and laments women’s continued absence from the school history curriculum. She issues a call-to-arms to make the curriculum more inclusive both by re-evaluating the criteria for curricular selection and by challenging established disciplinary conventions. She also weighs up...
How should women’s history be included at Key Stage 3?
-
Women in British Coal Mining
Historian article
With the final closure of Britain’s deep coal mines, Chris Wrigley examines the long-standing involvement of women in and around this challenging and dangerous form of work.
With the closure in 2015 of Thoresby and Kellingley mines, the last two working deep coal mines in Britain, leaving only open-cast coal...
Women in British Coal Mining
-
‘Compressing and rendering’: using biography to teach big stories
Teaching History article
In principle, Rachel Foster had long been aware of the value of creating an interplay between depth and overview across the history curriculum. But in practice, as she acknowledges here, she had tended to shy away from telling outline stories that encompassed a big chronological or geographical range. Recognising the...
‘Compressing and rendering’: using biography to teach big stories
-
Podcast Series: Women in Ancient Greece & Rome
Multipage Article
In this series of podcasts Dr Richard Hawley of Royal Holloway, University of London looks at the history of women in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Podcast Series: Women in Ancient Greece & Rome
-
British Women in the Nineteenth Century
Classic Pamphlet
A short pamphlet surveying the historical record of rather more than half the population of Britain over a period of a hundred years must of necessity be sketchy and incomplete. The great interest in history of women which has arisen in the last few decades has produced a great deal...
British Women in the Nineteenth Century
-
Women and power
Historian members' resource spotlight
Echoing the theme of the autumn issue of The Historian, this resource highlight examines aspects of the broad theme of women and power. We start by looking at some of the most overtly powerful women in history, from well-known Tudor monarchs to lesser-examined figures such as Æthelflæd. Power can be wielded in other...
Women and power
-
Census 2021: using the census in the history classroom
Article
As we approach the next census in March 2021, we are reminded of what a rich historical source the census is. For historians, using the census can shine a light on particular people and places – a snapshot in time. Big stories can be told through a sharp local lens...
Census 2021: using the census in the history classroom
-
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... gender and sexuality
Teaching History feature
Although they overlap, gender and sexuality are each a distinctive field of historical research. Researching in these fields involves cross-disciplinary work and a range of media and methods. One of the greatest challenges is that of terminology: how to refer to the gender identity or sexuality of a subject in...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... gender and sexuality
-
Reimagining the ‘Aba Riots’
Teaching History article
As an Early Career Teacher, Eleri Hedley-Carter set out to make the history she teaches in school more reflective of her undergraduate study of history – a discipline that strives to uncover a diverse past through various lenses and historical methods. In addition to expanding her school’s curriculum to include an...
Reimagining the ‘Aba Riots’
-
Film: Elizabeth I and Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film, Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford, looks at the two main challenges to Elizabeth I's authority: gender and religion. Professor Doran looks at the power of Elizabeth's personality, her relationship with her advisers plus the significance of religion and domestics politics to shaping her reign and...
Film: Elizabeth I and Tudor Royal Authority
-
Teaching the history of women in Europe in the twentieth-century
Teaching History article
This article is based on Ruth Tudor’s book. The book is the collaborative result of a series of seminars and discussions which involved educators throughout Europe. Written with 14-19 year olds in mind, the approach explores how it is possible to investigate, to exploit to provide new insights and to...
Teaching the history of women in Europe in the twentieth-century
-
Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Dr Anna Whitelock from Royal Holloway, University of London, discusses the life of Mary I, the first crowned Queen of England. Dr Whitelock looks at Mary's difficult early life, her submission to Henry VIII and the rise of a warrior princess. Dr Whitelock explores Mary as a courageous...
Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
-
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
-
Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
Historian article
May I introduce you to Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke? I'm very fond of this modern imagined portrait by Graham Turner, partly because of the colour and detail but chiefly because it conveys a respect for the people who lived in the past and especially for Anne herself. My interest...
Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
-
Film: The ladies-in-waiting who served the six wives of Henry VIII
Virtual Branch
Every queen had ladies-in-waiting. Her confidantes and chaperones, they are the forgotten agents of the Tudor court. Experts at survival, negotiating the competing demands of their families and their queen, the ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII’s wives were far more than decorative ‘extras’: they were serious political players who changed the...
Film: The ladies-in-waiting who served the six wives of Henry VIII
-
Recorded Webinar: Female slave-ownership in 18th- and 19th-century Britain
Article
There is a great deal of discussion at the moment about how we engage with and confront the history and legacies of slavery in twenty-first century Britain. A lot of attention has been placed on men like slave trader Edward Colston or merchant and slave-owner Robert Milligan, both of whom were memorialised...
Recorded Webinar: Female slave-ownership in 18th- and 19th-century Britain
-
Film: Proto-feminism in Britain and Ireland – 1714 to 1785
Power and Freedom in Britain and Ireland: 1714–2010
In Episode 11, Dr Mary Jo MacDonald of the University of Jyväskylä explores how the end of the Licensing Act, sweeping political change, and a revolution in intellectual culture opened unprecedented opportunities for women to shape political, social, and intellectual life in Britain and Ireland. The film highlights major proto‑feminist thinkers...
Film: Proto-feminism in Britain and Ireland – 1714 to 1785
-
Tracing the popular memory of Rosa Parks with Year 9
Teaching History article
Inspired by Jeanne Theoharis’s biography of Rosa Parks, Ed Durbin initially planned to challenge the ‘fable’ that had been constructed around her life. He soon realised, however, that he wanted to take the opportunity to get ‘behind’ the fable and help his students understand how and why it had been constructed. Drawing...
Tracing the popular memory of Rosa Parks with Year 9
-
How representing women can convey a more complex narrative of the Russian Revolution to Year 9
Teaching History article
Barbara Trapani was troubled by the oversimplified judgements her students were making about the Russian Revolution. Could the women of the revolution help her students overcome their tendency to focus on success and failure? Trapani revised her enquiry, selecting stories of women who could ‘illuminate’ a longer, more complex history of...
How representing women can convey a more complex narrative of the Russian Revolution to Year 9
-
Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools
Article
Are you teaching 20th-century history? Do you want to refresh your teaching of the campaign for women’s rights and equal representation?
Don’t forget to register for the Suffrage Resources website, a free resource developed specifically for schools to help teachers and students explore the rich history of the suffrage movement and...
Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools
-
'Victims of history': Challenging students’ perceptions of women in history
Teaching History article
As postgraduate historians with teaching responsibilities at the University of York, Bridget Lockyer and Abigail Tazzyman were concerned to tackle some of the challenges reported by their students who had generally only encountered women’s history in a disconnected way through stand-alone topics or modules. Their response was to create a...
'Victims of history': Challenging students’ perceptions of women in history
-
(Un)exceptional women: queenship and power in medieval Europe
Historian article
How was the power of a Queen described and how far did It extend? In this article some of the most important queens of the Medieval period are examined for the authority they were able to wield.
When we think of queens, the idea that they are extraordinary women, elevated to the highest status...
(Un)exceptional women: queenship and power in medieval Europe
-
Power, authority and geography
Teaching History article
Dissatisfied by her previous enquiries on medieval kingship and inspired by Helen Castor’s 'She-Wolves', Elizabeth Carr sought to incorporate the stories of powerful medieval women such as Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine into her Key Stage 3 curriculum. Carr used these stories to highlight to her pupils the crucial...
Power, authority and geography
-
Cunning Plan 183: Teaching a broader Britain, 1625–1714
Teaching History feature
‘Gruesome!’ was how we decided to describe our teaching of seventeenth-century British history, although ‘inadequate’ was probably more accurate. Oh, how much was wrong! We had…
Incoherence. The Civil War and Protectorate years plonked in between the Elizabethan Age and the origins of the industrial revolution. We had lost years!
A...
Cunning Plan 183: Teaching a broader Britain, 1625–1714
-
Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12
Teaching History article
In this article Sophie Harley-McKeown identifies and addresses her Year 12 students’ blind spot over agentive explanation. Noticing that the examination board to which she teaches uses ‘motivations’ rather than ‘aims’ prompted her to consider whether her students really knew what that meant. Finding that her students’ causal explanations tended...
Why does anyone do anything? Attempts to improve agentive explanations with Year 12
