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Polychronicon 165: The 1917 revolutions in 2017: 100 years on
Teaching History feature
The interpretive and empirical frameworks utilised by scholars in their quest to understand the Russian revolutions have evolved and transformed over 100 years. The opening of archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union enabled access to a swathe of new primary sources, some of which have had a transformative...
Polychronicon 165: The 1917 revolutions in 2017: 100 years on
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Polychronicon 140: Why did the Cold War End?
Teaching History feature
The end of the Cold War is a controversial subject. Contemporary analysts did not see it coming. Any explanation of its ending which seeks to build up a network of causation will therefore be forced to make arguments based on events whose significance was not necessarily seen at the time....
Polychronicon 140: Why did the Cold War End?
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Welcome back to a new school year
Information
Welcome back to a new school year
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What are the reasons for linking art and history?
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
Visual images, paintings, sculpture, photographs, cartoons from past times are important historical sources. Accordingly, Simon Schama embeds visual images and imagery in his historical oeuvre, not primarily as illustration but as a crucial...
What are the reasons for linking art and history?
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Developing meaningful cross-curricular approaches
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Some history departments find themselves under pressure to incorporate skills and competences from alternative curricula. Others find that with the pressure to ease transition issues in Year 7, history can almost disappear into an amalgam...
Developing meaningful cross-curricular approaches
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Art and History: Justifying the Links
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated.
History and Art have been taught as traditional subjects for many years and as cross curricular subjects they compliment each other beautifully. I do not see how we can realistically completely separate them...
Art and History: Justifying the Links
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The Historian 158: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 158: Music
Anniversaries provide enticing opportunities for historians and the public to reflect on moments from our collective past. For choral music lovers this year is significant as it is the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Tudor composer William Byrd, which is being marked by...
The Historian 158: Out now
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Bridging the gap: supporting early career teachers’ professional development as history teachers
Teaching History article
Kate Hawkey and Helen Snelson, who have both worked for many years in initial teacher education, wanted to find ways of supporting recently qualified teachers in continuing to develop their practice. Working in two different parts of the country, they established different kinds of informal, but well-focused history-specific, support groups....
Bridging the gap: supporting early career teachers’ professional development as history teachers
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The current condition of primary history
Article
This section looks at how primary history is currently performing largely through an analysis of a wide range of OFSTED evidence but also by examining the results of a recent Historical Association survey.
The current condition of primary history
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The Historian 41
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles
3 Feature: Greek Oracles and Greek Democracy, Hugh Bowden
9 Update: Dark Age Italy, Ross Balzaretti
12 Education Forum: The Young Historian Scheme, John Fines
28 Spotlight: The Vacation School, Hull
The Historian 41
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'Doing justice to history': the learning of African history in a North London secondary school
Teaching History article
‘Doing justice to history': the learning of African history in a North London secondary school and teacher development in the spirit of ubuntu
The medium is the message, Marshall McLuhan observed many years ago and the ‘form' of what we do carries ‘content' as Hayden White has argued. This article...
'Doing justice to history': the learning of African history in a North London secondary school
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The Historian
The magazine of the Historical Association
Welcome to this special sample edition of The Historian. We have gathered here just a few of the fascinating articles and features that have been published in the quarterly editions in recent months. Deciding what to select was not an easy task as there are a wide range of styles,...
The Historian
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Taking control of assessment
Teaching History article
Ian Luff recognised that in a post-levels world efforts to devise new assessment systems risked replicating old problems or creating new ones. Drawing on his many years’ experience of teaching and school leadership Luff argues that for assessment in history to be truly useful to teachers and pupils it needs...
Taking control of assessment
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Film: What's the wisdom on... Consequence
Your Virtual History Department Meeting
'What’s the wisdom on…' is a popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect stimulus for a department meeting. 'What’s the wisdom on…' provides history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of many years of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching.
To...
Film: What's the wisdom on... Consequence
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More than ever, history and historians need a collaborative and co-ordinated approach
27th February 2025
It’s been an especially grim start to 2025 for many in UK higher education. News in early January of cuts and job losses at the universities of Canterbury Christ Church, Northampton and Staffordshire has been followed by announcements from Cardiff, Durham, Newcastle, Reading and, once again, Kent. This, moreover, is...
More than ever, history and historians need a collaborative and co-ordinated approach
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A History of the World: 100 objects that tell a story
Primary History article
‘A History of the World in 100 Objects' was the most creative, imaginative and dynamic development in primary History Education for thirty years. It ties in perfectly with and supports the government's draft NC for History...
A History of the World: 100 objects that tell a story
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Oral history in primary schools
Article
Although this article focuses on a distinctive and effective historical activity it is important from the outset to recognise that involvement in oral history also has the potential to enhance learning across the ‘formal curriculum’ and beyond. Talking to older people about their lived experience and recording their memories provides...
Oral history in primary schools
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Planning for historical understanding a conceptual framework
Article
Planning for historical understanding a conceptual framework:
Responding To The Rose Report Through The Lens Of The Cambridge Review.
Introduction
At last we have Children, Their World, Their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review, (Alexander 2009). This is an independent study funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Trust,...
Planning for historical understanding a conceptual framework
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Eighteenth-century Britain and its Empire
Article
The concept of an ‘English’ or even of a ‘British’ empire has been in use at least from the sixteenth century. What the term then conveyed was of course very different from what it was to convey in modern times. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, contemporaries were beginning to envisage...
Eighteenth-century Britain and its Empire
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Virtual Branch Recording: The House of Dudley
23rd April 2024
The Dudleys thrived at the court of Henry VII, but were sacrificed to the popularity of Henry VIII. Rising to prominence in the reign of Edward VI, the Dudleys lost it all by advancing Jane Grey to the throne over Mary I. That was until the reign of Elizabeth I,...
Virtual Branch Recording: The House of Dudley
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A medieval credit crunch
Historian article
The project: A three-year research project started in December 2007 with the aim of investigating the credit arrangements of a succession of English monarchs with a number of Italian merchant societies. The study, based at the ICMA Centre, University of Reading, is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)....
A medieval credit crunch
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In My View: Creativity & History
Article
Introduction
A great deal has been written recently defining what is meant by creativity in primary education. And much has been written urging us to ‘teach creatively'. Yet there had been no exploration of what teaching creatively means in terms of teaching history until a group of colleagues and I...
In My View: Creativity & History
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History's secret weapon: the enquiry of a disciplined mind
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
As a local authority adviser, Andrew Wrenn's advice has often been sought by history departments, both those seeking to resist ill-conceived and potentially damaging cross-curricular initiatives and those keen to exploit new opportunities for meaningful...
History's secret weapon: the enquiry of a disciplined mind
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The National Curriculum Attainment Target (from 2008)
HITT Resource
Level 4
Pupils show their knowledge and understanding of local, national and international history by describing some of the main events, people and periods they have studied, and by identifying where these fit within a chronological framework. They describe characteristic features of past societies and periods to identify change and...
The National Curriculum Attainment Target (from 2008)
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My Favourite History Place - Nuneaton's Old Grammar School
Historian article
Near the centre of the largest town in Warwickshire, an oasis of calm encompasses the area of Nuneaton parish church, vicarage and Old Grammar School. Of the three buildings, the Old Grammar School may be the least impressive but its history is just as eventful. Nuneaton’s Boys’ Free Grammar School,...
My Favourite History Place - Nuneaton's Old Grammar School
