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Young Quills 2024 – the longlist
HA 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 2023 for this year’s selection.
Our...
Young Quills 2024 – the longlist
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Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
Historian article
Hugh Gault reminds us that the provision of adequate and price-accessible housing stock has been a matter of public debate and concern for over a hundred years. Economics and financial priorities have continued to undermine the methodologies and good intentions needed to solve the problem.
This year is the hundredth...
Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
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Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
Historian article
Following Jamie Oliver’s devastating television series on the inadequacy of school meals the present government has been quick to be seen to address the situation. In September 2005, Ruth Kelly, the then Education Secretary, announced a war on junk food in schools.1 This was nothing new, because the history of...
Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
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Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
Teaching History article
Tom Bennett begins his article with a tale of a frustrating afternoon with Year 7. We’ve all been there. In his case, his frustration was caused by his finding a conceptual gap between how well his class wanted to do and the actual quality of their causal thinking. Bennett decided...
Using diagrammatic representations of counterfactuals to develop causal reasoning
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Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women
Teaching History feature
The beginnings of the nationally organised campaign for women’s suffrage began with suffragists’ orchestration of the petition to Parliament in favour of female suffrage in 1866. The petition contained almost 1,500 names from across the country and was presented to parliament by the Liberal MP John Stuart Mill; it was...
Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women
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Britain’s Jews in the First World War
Book review
Britain’s Jews in the First World War, Paula Kitching, Amberley, 2019, 286p, £14-99. ISBN 978-1-4456-6320-3
The title of this book does not fully convey the importance of its contents and focus. It provides a variety of perspectives on the Jewish involvement in the British war effort in the Great War....
Britain’s Jews in the First World War
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HA short courses: Terms and conditions
Information
Please read the short course terms and conditions carefully before you register for a place on the short course. By booking a place, you agree to adhere to these terms and conditions.
Please note that these terms and conditions are only applicable to the HA’s short course and do not...
HA short courses: Terms and conditions
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Online course: Teaching empire through material culture
HA online course for primary and secondary teachers
The topic of empire lends itself ideally to a material approach – the objects often provide the opportunity to bring in indigenous voices to our study of the imperial past, while our classroom experience has shown that objects provide a powerful channel through which to access complex and sometimes uncomfortable...
Online course: Teaching empire through material culture
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On-demand webinar series: History and literacy
HA webinar series for secondary history teachers
Writing history is hard, and motivating students to read long texts can be difficult. In this series of four webinars, Dan Warner-Meanwell and Paula Lobo-Worth will demonstrate how they have helped their students to meet the challenges in reading and writing history. They haven’t done this by bolting-on generic activities or...
On-demand webinar series: History and literacy
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Questions to help you review your KS3 curriculum
Guidance for history teachers
This resource is free to everyone. For access to our library of high-quality secondary history materials along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of history teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
With Ofsted incorporating curriculum into inspections from September 2019 and finally...
Questions to help you review your KS3 curriculum
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60th anniversary of JFK's assassination
1st November 2023
If my generation all remember where they were when the aeroplanes, hijacked by terrorists, flew into the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, then my parents' generation all knew where they were when they heard about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Before the conspiracy theorists and the...
60th anniversary of JFK's assassination
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Which historical place or person from your local area deserves greater recognition?
Local history - get involved
Each year, the HA hosts and promotes Local History Month in May, which seems like a long way off right now but we believe in planning ahead. We also believe that now is the time to celebrate some of the rich history and histories that are found in our local...
Which historical place or person from your local area deserves greater recognition?
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Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2023 – the winners
The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-19 years
Being inspired by stories of the past to tell stories for today has kept people entertained for hundreds of years. Take a look at the shelves in any bookshop and there will be plenty of historical fiction. That is why we believe in starting them young at the HA, and...
Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition 2023 – the winners
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Here ends the lesson: shaping lesson conclusions
Teaching History journal article
Reflecting on her efforts to improve her trainee’s lesson conclusions, Paula Worth decided to brush up her own. A journey of self-evaluation led her to revisit the Cambridge Conclusions Project. Through its lens, she judged her own lesson conclusions wanting. Worth examines the way in which the final episode of...
Here ends the lesson: shaping lesson conclusions
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Establishing a University-based HA Branch
Article
The following case study is based on my own experience of establishing the City of Lincoln HA branch, which is based at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln, where I am a Senior Lecturer in History. The branch launched at the university on Wednesday 19th February 2014.
Members of the BGU...
Establishing a University-based HA Branch
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Young Quills winners 2023
The Young Quills Awards for best historical fiction for young people
It is with great pleasure that the HA is able to announce the winners of the Young Quills for Historical Fiction for 2023:
Young readers category
Winner: Tony Bradman for Bruno and Frida (Barrington Stoke)Highly Commended: Judith Eagle for Accidental Stowaway (Faber)
Intermediate category
Winner: Tom Palmer for Resist (Barrington...
Young Quills winners 2023
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HA Awards Evening 2023 round-up
14th July 2023
It was a joy to bring together so many people to celebrate the study of history at our annual ‘Medlicotts’ awards evening on 12 July.
Originally formed around awarding the Medlicott Medal for History to that year’s recipient it is now also an opportunity to celebrate all the awards, honours...
HA Awards Evening 2023 round-up
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Dealing with the consequences
Teaching History journal article
Do GCSE and A-level questions that purport to be about consequences actually reward reasoning about historical consequences at all? Molly-Ann Navey concluded that they do not and that they fail to encourage the kind of argument that academic historians engage in when reaching judgements about consequences. Navey decided that it...
Dealing with the consequences
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Windrush 75
6th June 2023
The ship the HMT Empire Windrush arrived into the UK on 22 June 1948. It carried 592 passengers from the Caribbean who were answering the UK Government’s call to fill jobs in Britain’s post-war economy. Between 1948–1971 many more Empire and Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean islands would arrive in...
Windrush 75
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Refugee Week 2023
19th May 2023
People become refugees all over the world for many different reasons, and they come from many different backgrounds. Refugees have been a continuous feature of human societies for thousands of years. How long people remain as a refugee can be days, weeks or a lifetime – what unites them is that they...
Refugee Week 2023
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Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 History (Early Years)
Primary History article
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
History education needs to be placed in a wider pattern of curriculum development. Part I of this paper looks at general issues linking History with citizenship education and the early years. Part 2...
Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 History (Early Years)
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Teaching Famous People at Key Stage One
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated
Studying famous people at Key Stage One has obviously been an issue for many years and no matter how long you have been teaching the name Florence Nightingale seems to appear as the only famous...
Teaching Famous People at Key Stage One
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Why stop at the Tudors?
Primary History article
When deciding to teach the topic of Benin to my Year 5 pupils I was somewhat daunted by the fact that I had never taught it before, and I was determined that it be a meaningful experience which benefited their narrative, chronological and historical skills-based understanding of the subject. I was...
Why stop at the Tudors?
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Pupil Voice Survey: Views of history – within and beyond school
21st March 2023
The Historical Association (HA) in conjunction with the University of Oxford Education Department are looking for schools to help carry out two very short questionnaires:
(1) with any students willing to share their views of the subject including, where relevant, their decision about whether or not to choose the subject...
Pupil Voice Survey: Views of history – within and beyond school
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Hitler’s British Isles: The Real Story of the Occupied Channel Islands
Book Review
Hitler’s British Isles: The Real Story of the Occupied Channel Islands, Duncan Barrett, Simon and Schuster, 2018, 413p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-4711-6637-2
Having just read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Bloomsbury 2008), this very interesting book has now extended considerably my understanding of the nature of the experiences of...
Hitler’s British Isles: The Real Story of the Occupied Channel Islands
