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Doing local history
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Editorial comment: ‘Doing Local History' permeates John Fines' oeuvre on the teaching of history - it is both warp and weft. In introducing a Local History case study John outlined the nature and purposes of Local...
Doing local history
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Using history to launch the creative curriculum
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
At its core, the creative curriculum is a carefully planned, thematic approach to teaching and learning, designed to support and stimulate children's natural curiosity and creativity. Children can work in depth, giving them time to reflect,...
Using history to launch the creative curriculum
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Making links: Myths, legends and problem-solving with the Greeks
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Introduction: Meaningful links
"Teachers will be able to make links within and across areas of learning to help children understand how each distinctive area links to and is supported by others."
(Rose Chapter 2, 2.23)
‘Meaningful...
Making links: Myths, legends and problem-solving with the Greeks
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Hearts, Hamsters and Historic Education
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
This is a reflection on a project, set up with a variety of different thoughts about education in its widest sense. Or, to put it another way, a primary school teacher's record of a unique...
Hearts, Hamsters and Historic Education
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Case Study: Classroom archaeology. Sutton Hoo, or the mystery of the empty grave
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘Would you like to go for a walk in the woods on the other side of the river? I asked my wife on a spring day in 1982. Happily she assented, and we drove off...
Case Study: Classroom archaeology. Sutton Hoo, or the mystery of the empty grave
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Case Study: Engaging history with National Trust tracker packs
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
White Horse Hill in Oxfordshire is home to the famous chalk White Horse, and it has been for the last 3000 years. The history surrounding this hill, high up on the Berkshire Downs, goes back...
Case Study: Engaging history with National Trust tracker packs
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Archaeology: A view from the classroom
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Perhaps it is the earthiness of the ground beneath our feet which arouses pupils' curiosity. Or maybe, the idea of the unexpected with the hope of finding something precious or unusual, that is so engaging about archaeology....
Archaeology: A view from the classroom
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Children's thinking in archaeology
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Young children enjoy prehistory Tactile, Physical and Enactive engagement with archaeological remains stimulates, excites and promotes children's logical, imaginative, creative and deductive thinking. Through archaeology there are infinite opportunities for ‘reasonable guesses' about sources and...
Children's thinking in archaeology
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Bringing the past to life!
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As an archaeologist who, after being a bit bored with history at school, discovered the excitement of the past through digging in dirt and finding things, I get frustrated by people not ‘getting' what archaeology...
Bringing the past to life!
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The Leeds Community History Project
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The Nuffield Foundation-funded Leeds Community History Project brought together schools and older community members in the creation of community archives. It focused on articulating, valuing and recording the older generation's memories and knowledge. Its overarching...
The Leeds Community History Project
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Primary history and the curriculum: a South African perspective
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
The issues surrounding the construction of a post-conflict history curriculum are complex. At its most basic level, the memory choice for a country emerging from mass violence is between remembering and forgetting, with...
Primary history and the curriculum: a South African perspective
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History...about lives and living
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Let me start with a personal experience and then move on to a classroom example.
I went to Paris for a few days recently and sat in the bar where Hemingway used to drink with...
History...about lives and living
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Every picture tells a story: Sage comme une image
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
A crucial issue in using history as a vehicle for learning is the professional development of colleagues with whom you are working. This is an activity I did with students on a PGCE...
Every picture tells a story: Sage comme une image
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Case Study: Pictorial Recording
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
The innovative use of visual images as communication mode and stimulus to writing is provided by Jan, a teacher on one of the Nuffield courses. Children, and adults, have trouble in making effective...
Case Study: Pictorial Recording
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A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
The employment of the visual image is a fascinating and exciting way to enable children to gain a glimpse into the past. It is problematic, however, in that such imagery is often an...
A Beginner's Guide to using visual image in primary schools
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Think Bubble 49: Frozen moments
Primary History article
Whenever I look at an old sepia photograph or one of those amazing 19th century genre pictures like William Powell Frith's Ramsgate Sands, it is not the immediate images that grab my attention. Although the detail is often remarkable, in the case of Ramsgate Sands the attentive mother gently introducing...
Think Bubble 49: Frozen moments
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In my view: Using Pictures
Primary History article
Children grow up surrounded by pictures - moving pictures on the TV, still advertisements on hoardings, pictures in newspapers and magazines and comic books. ‘The media' are ever present, and so we assume that our children are visually literate - wise eyed. When we see them flicking through books ‘looking...
In my view: Using Pictures
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Researching History - Time travellers and Role Players
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘Ok children, time for history.'
Distant moans from the back of the class. Would I be surprised by this reaction? No, not if the teacher was diligently following the QCA guidelines for teaching history. Yes, if...
Researching History - Time travellers and Role Players
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Unpicking the learning potential in creative approaches to studying World War II
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
‘The biggest issue for school history is its limited place in the curriculum.' (Ofsted, 2007)
This central concern of Ofsted's 2007 report, History in the balance, could equally apply to the teaching of drama in primary schools....
Unpicking the learning potential in creative approaches to studying World War II
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Getting Started with Drama: The Roses of Eyam 1665
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
If you are a little nervous of using drama in your history lessons, here is a safe way to start but look out for the many opportunities that arise for developing empathy, personal opinion, understanding of...
Getting Started with Drama: The Roses of Eyam 1665
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Drama and history: a theory for learning
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
When I visit primary schools these days it heartens me to see how often drama is used in classroom teaching. Looking back over my own career, drama and role play have always been...
Drama and history: a theory for learning
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Drama - Choosing an approach
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
There is a range of drama strategies that we use all the time. The important point is to select a strategy with which you feel confident. For example, the collective making of a map by the...
Drama - Choosing an approach
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Working through drama
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Drama puts the fear of God into some teachers. Some, jolly sensible souls, just don't feel dramatic, fear wearing feathered hats and using funny voices; others know, deep in their hearts, that plays always lead to...
Working through drama
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Thinking through history: assessment and learning for the gifted young historian
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Historical enquiry requires reasoning. Even historical imagination depends on being able to evaluate a number of possible responses to an hypothesis and mastery of detail and argument. The high levels of thinking in history of...
Thinking through history: assessment and learning for the gifted young historian
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Case Study: Gifted Pupils design new children's museum galleries
Primary History case study
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
In this article I will describe a G&T museum-based project which we have just trialled with three primary schools in the Ashton Bedminster primary school cluster in Bristol. It was a joint initiative between Bristol’s...
Case Study: Gifted Pupils design new children's museum galleries
