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Case Study: Working with gifted and talented children at an Iron Age hill fort in north Somerset
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
The phone call was over - manna from heaven. The opportunity to work with a ‘real' archaeologist on a ‘real' Iron Age site seemed far too good to be true. The cluster of eight South...
Case Study: Working with gifted and talented children at an Iron Age hill fort in north Somerset
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Case Study: Prehistory in the primary curriculum: A stonehenge to remember
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
An article in the Sunday Times newspaper on 7 December reported that Britain is to stop making nominations to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) for heritage sites to be granted World Heritage...
Case Study: Prehistory in the primary curriculum: A stonehenge to remember
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Our heritage: use it or lose it
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Mrs Markham's influential textbook, ‘A History of England', was first published in 1819 but was still being printed at the end of the nineteenth century. At the end of each chapter is a ‘Conversation'...
Our heritage: use it or lose it
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The true end of archaeology?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Wow! The most magical words you can hear from a child. How do we get this wow factor? In my experience, archaeology is full of wow. It was Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1954 who wrote...
The true end of archaeology?
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Exploring the Rollright Stones as part of your Stone Age to Iron Age study
Primary History article
Those teaching the Stone Age to Iron Age will be aware that the range of sources can be seen as rather narrow largely because of the absence of written records. It often means resorting to artefacts and monuments. This article explores one stone site and how it can be used as...
Exploring the Rollright Stones as part of your Stone Age to Iron Age study
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Back to basics: How might we organise historical knowledge?
Primary History article
There has been much emphasis on pupils having a rich knowledge and this has led to many schools devising knowledge lists and knowledge organisers. This article argues that is a valuable element in a good history curriculum in primary schools but that it is important that this is properly thought...
Back to basics: How might we organise historical knowledge?
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Exploring empire, artefacts and local history
Primary History article
This article introduces us to the Colonial Countryside Project. Many of the sites we visit, especially the great country houses and stately homes, have long been visited by children. They are often fascinated by both the buildings and the history associated with them. However, there is a growing recognition that...
Exploring empire, artefacts and local history
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Anniversary: Festival of Britain 1951
Primary History article
The Festival of Britain was held 70 years ago. For many this provided a boost for the country after the deprivations of World War II and the economic struggles afterwards. It was designed to be educational and was held 100 years after the Great Exhibition. It was designed to show pride...
Anniversary: Festival of Britain 1951
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Life in lockdown
Primary History article
In this article on the impact of the Coronavirus, Matthew Flynn from Ryders Hayes in Walsall, a History Quality Mark school, has considered how history subject leaders can maintain the status of the subject when faced with remote learning.
Education has undergone many changes and uncertainty over the decades, but...
Life in lockdown
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One of my favourite history places: the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Primary History feature
This certainly represents one of the more unusual in the ‘My favourite place’ series: a hospital for the mentally ill for the poorer sections of society. Buildings such as this, however, were often imposing structures with fine architecture and an important history. With a growing recognition of the importance of...
One of my favourite history places: the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum
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Changes in an aspect of social history from 1945 to 2000: youth culture
Primary History article
A history-themed topic based around music is a popular choice among many teachers and children. Music is after all a thread which runs through all of history, and one through which we can explore many other aspects of life in different times. It can be an exciting avenue into exploring...
Changes in an aspect of social history from 1945 to 2000: youth culture
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Primary History 88: Out now
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
Read Primary History 88
It is sometimes the case that the history we are exposed to changes in a way that is barely perceptible. At other times the changes have been momentous. Some have been long lasting, others fleeting. The time that primary history often felt like a support act for...
Primary History 88: Out now
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How did a volcano affect life in the Bronze Age?
Primary History article
Recent discoveries have greatly altered our view of life in the Bronze Age. Must Farm, for example, was built in the Cambridgeshire Fens around 1000 BCE.
Sometime around 1159 BCE (no-one is quite sure when) Hekla, a volcano in Iceland (a country no-one yet knew existed) erupted, throwing millions of...
How did a volcano affect life in the Bronze Age?
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Exploring the spices of the east: how curry got to our table
Primary History article
Every migrant to our shores brings with them the flavours and dishes of home, every trader searches for exotic and exciting new taste sensations. Britain’s culinary history has been shaped by migration, trade and empire.
How curry, exploration and empire building are linked
At the end of the Tudor period...
Exploring the spices of the east: how curry got to our table
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Fifty years ago we lost the need to know our twelve times tables
Primary History article
In the first year of junior school, I was in Mrs Phillip’s class. She was one of those teachers who you remember, but, sadly not for good reasons. I was very frightened of Mrs Phillips and the worst part of every week was the tables test… forwards, backwards and questions...
Fifty years ago we lost the need to know our twelve times tables
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Belmont’s evacuee children: a local history project
Primary History article
Teaching about World War II, particularly the home front, continues to be popular in primary schools, despite the government deciding not to include it as a compulsory subject in the new National Curriculum introduced in 2014. Many primary schools still choose to organise an evacuee experience of some kind for pupils...
Belmont’s evacuee children: a local history project
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Ofsted and primary history
Primary History article
Firstly, I would like to introduce myself as Ofsted’s new Subject Lead for history.
Despite the many challenges of the past year, it is an exciting time for history education. I am very pleased that the number of primary history teachers who are now part of the HA community has...
Ofsted and primary history
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Blending history and creative writing: imagining a lost Anglo-Saxon poem
Primary History article
Decoding a manuscript, exploring glittering archaeology, imagining the emotions and sensations of a battle, and learning Old English vocabulary. These are all tasks that we, as teachers of medieval literature in the English Department at King’s College London, have assigned to our undergraduate classes.
However, Key Stage 2 children can...
Blending history and creative writing: imagining a lost Anglo-Saxon poem
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Back to basics: what does a good history lesson look like?
Primary History article
The new emphasis from Ofsted on the importance of the foundation subjects has meant a very welcome renewed interest in history and how it is taught. For years the dominance of literacy and numeracy in the curriculum has meant that time for foundation subjects has at best been compressed, and...
Back to basics: what does a good history lesson look like?
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Storytelling the past
Primary History article
This article will demonstrate how to engage children through storytelling and how it can be used to develop their critical understanding of the past.
Why story?
Despite their common derivation, the words ‘history’ and ‘story’ suggest very different kinds of knowledge, the former carrying overtones of detached understanding of the...
Storytelling the past
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The back cover image: Malachite Urn
Primary History feature
This large green urn was given as a gift to Queen Victoria in 1839 by Emperor Nicholas I, to thank her for the way in which his son Alexander had been welcomed in England the previous year. It was placed in the Grand Reception Room of Windsor Castle, and has...
The back cover image: Malachite Urn
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Using different sources to bring a topic to life: The Rebecca Riots
Primary History article
For primary school pupils a key aim of the National Curriculum for history is to understand the method of historical enquiry. Working with original sources is of course central to the whole process and provides a great way to inspire pupils’ experience of the subject. Young pupils, once they have...
Using different sources to bring a topic to life: The Rebecca Riots
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A cultural legacy: the theatre of ancient Greece
Primary History article
Sometimes it is not easy to understand how the different units of the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum were selected, but this is not true for the Ancient Greek unit. Since the renaissance period, knowledge of ‘the classics’ has been a central element for an educated man or woman. Ancient...
A cultural legacy: the theatre of ancient Greece
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What can you tell about the Vikings from a chess piece?
Primary History article
Alf Wilkinson looks at one artefact, and asks what it tells us about the Viking world, and Viking links with other societies and civilisations.
In 1831, on a lonely beach on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, someone – we are not quite sure who – made an...
What can you tell about the Vikings from a chess piece?
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Migration to Britain through time
Primary History article
Migration is rarely absent from the news and arouses political, social cultural and emotional responses which range from compassion to hostility, racism and anti-racism. By exploring migration in the past, it is possible for children to go beyond current issues and appreciate that, rather than being a recent characteristic of...
Migration to Britain through time
