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New, Novice or Nervous? 157: Teaching Overview
Teaching History feature
Overwhelmed by overview? Bewildered by how to teach bigger pictures? Tied up in mental knots by trying to work out the difference between thematic stories, frameworks and outlines? You are not alone.
Like many history teachers, you feel more confident when teaching depth studies but find yourself beating a rapid...
New, Novice or Nervous? 157: Teaching Overview
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Securing contextual knowledge in year 10
Teaching History article
Using regular, low-stakes tests to secure pupils' contextual knowledge in Year 10
Lee Donaghy was concerned that his GCSE students' weak contextual knowledge was letting them down. Inspired by a mixture of cognitive science and the arguments of other teachers expressed in various blogs, he decided to tackle the problem...
Securing contextual knowledge in year 10
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Introduction to the Survive & Thrive Units
Introduction
What's the point of the four Survive and Thrive units?Survive:There are today many teacher-training routes into the teaching profession. The teacher-training year is always a difficult balancing act between gaining enough classroom experience and enough understanding of the theories that underpin the discipline's key skills. As a result, each teacher-training...
Introduction to the Survive & Thrive Units
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On British Soil: Hartlepool, 16 December, 1914
Historian article
Heugh Battery, a Victorian survivor, received a new lease of life in 1908 when introduction of an improved Vickers 6-inch Mark VII gun greatly added to earlier, far less telling firepower. The Victorian pile was refurbished two years later and a pair of the new cannon installed. In 1907, the...
On British Soil: Hartlepool, 16 December, 1914
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Place-names and the National Curriculum for History
Primary History article
Place-names, such as house or school names, are infinite in number and all around us. Every place-name may convey a message about the place. Often place-names record and celebrate local and national people, events and incidents, define what a place looked like in the past and how we used to...
Place-names and the National Curriculum for History
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Military Labour During the First World War
Review
John Starling and Ivor Lee, No Labour, No Battle: Military Labour During the First World War, The History Press, 2009 (384pp, incl. 30pp of phtogrpahs; pbk, £19.99)
You might wonder why I am telling you about this book. There have been endless commemorations about WWI, but except for David Olusoga's...
Military Labour During the First World War
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The Great Debate 2026: Speeches
Multipage Article
The Great Debate concluded on 21 March 2026 in Central London following a thrilling day. The competition started in the autumn of 2025 with heats running across the UK and online until February 2026. The three semi-finals held online led to the 21 finalists who were invited to London for...
The Great Debate 2026: Speeches
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Scheme of Work: Chronological Unit - Numbers Through Time
Primary Scheme of Work, Key Stage 2 History (unresourced)
The chronological unit is new and challenging for primary schools and it is important to tackle it correctly. Whether you decide to take the option of a broad sweep of time as this unit does, or whether you decide to home in on a specific turning point (examples of these...
Scheme of Work: Chronological Unit - Numbers Through Time
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Coventry Branch Pamphlets
Multipage Article
Since its foundation in 1906 local branches have been the life-blood of the Historical Association. Their number, size, location and activities have varied greatly over the intervening years but a few branches have produced their own publications, most notably Bristol and Coventry. In a series which ran from 1964 to...
Coventry Branch Pamphlets
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Early Modern Britain 1509-1745
HA Secondary Resources (Key Stage 3)
While the 2014 Curriculum sets out the broad focus of each particular content area, considerable choice has been left to history departments in determining which particular events or developments to include and how they can best 'combine overview and depth studies to help pupils understand both the long arc of...
Early Modern Britain 1509-1745
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Medieval Britain 1066-1509
HA Resources
The development of Church, state and society in Medieval Britain 1066-1509While the 2014 Curriculum sets out the broad focus of each particular content area, considerable choice has been left to history departments in determining which particular events or developments to include and how they can best 'combine overview and depth...
Medieval Britain 1066-1509
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Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
Podcast Series
Controversial History formed the focus of the Historical Association’s report, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19 (TEACH). Published in 2007, it offered teachers invaluable guidance for teaching historical topics that can stir emotion and controversy. However, the authors noted how the nature of the sensitivity can be affected by ‘time, geography and...
Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History
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Thinking of teaching?
Multipage Article
Routes into teaching
Although there are now hundreds of training providers and different courses from which to choose, an awareness of some basic distinctions can help enormously in deciding what type of programme you want to follow, and clarifying your options. One essential distinction is between fee-paying programmes, on which...
Thinking of teaching?
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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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Teacher Fellowship Programme: Teaching the Age of Revolutions
Teacher Fellowship Programme 2018
The 2018 Teacher Fellowship Programme looked at developing teaching of the Age of Revolutions (1755-1848) and was fully funded by the Age of Revolution education legacy project. It focused on embedding the teaching of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century history in UK schools through the development of teacher subject knowledge and subject...
Teacher Fellowship Programme: Teaching the Age of Revolutions
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The Investiture Disputes
Classic Pamphlet
Historical labels are dictated by a wayward fashion; and the name which is still most commonly associated with the first struggle of Empire and Papacy (1076-1122). "The Investiture Disputes," is neither lucid or appropriate. It has been commoner for historians to name the great wars of history after the issues...
The Investiture Disputes
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Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
Classic Pamphlet
Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
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Teaching History 32
Journal
Editorial, 2
The Role of History in Multi-Cultural Education - David Edgington, 3
The Perception of Indian History Teachers about the Ideal Pupil - Vijay K. Raina, 6
Can History Survive? - Trevor Fisher, 8
Report: Teaching A Level History: A Conference Report - Sandra Armstrong, 10
The History Curriculum...
Teaching History 32
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Period, place and mental space
Teaching History article
Period, place and mental space: using historical scholarship to develop Year 7 pupils' sense of period
What is a sense of period? And how can pupils' sense of period be developed? Questions such as these have troubled history teachers for many years, often revolving around debates over the role played by...
Period, place and mental space
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The English Domestic Servant in English History
Classic Pamphlet
The history of domestic service in England has yet to be written. Hewers of wood and drawers of water there have always been, but historians have usually been little concerned with them. The material for their history is scattered and difficult to assess; even the word ‘servant' is not easy...
The English Domestic Servant in English History
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Lincoln Branch Programme
Article
All enquiries to Prof. Jamie Wood woodjamie999@gmail.com All talks start at 6.15pm and take place on the Brayford Pool Campus of the University of Lincoln.
To book: https://cityoflincolnbranchha.wordpress.com/lecture-programme-and-booking/.
Talks are free to national HA members, teachers and students, and University of Lincoln and Bishop Grosseteste University staff and students. Associate...
Lincoln Branch Programme
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Towards inclusion: A study of significant figures and disability within the national curriculum
Primary History article
Since the early days of the National Curriculum, considerable progress has been made to introduce children to an inclusive view of history. The research of the late Hilary Claire (1996) served as a major impetus and now primary teachers strive to ensure that no groups or individuals are marginalised, particularly...
Towards inclusion: A study of significant figures and disability within the national curriculum
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Slavery in Britain
Primary History article
Images reflect the social customs and attitudes of the society in which they are produced, and we may nowdisapprove of these attitudes. Conversely, our own ideas of what is right and wrong may well have been unacceptable in the past. Among these are the rights accorded to children, the disabled,...
Slavery in Britain
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Strange Journey: the life of Dorothy Eckersley
Historian article
Meeting in Berlin
Three days before the outbreak of the Second World War, William Joyce, the leader of the British Nazi group, the National Socialist League, was in Berlin. He and his wife, Margaret, had fled there fearing internment by the British government if war broke out. Yet as war...
Strange Journey: the life of Dorothy Eckersley
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Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
Teaching History feature
The past 30 years have seen a general revival in scholarly activity relating to ‘all aspects of 18th-century British history'. However, this increase in academic study, which has broadly coincided with the introduction and development of the National Curriculum in England, has not resulted in the period being studied in great...
Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
