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How do pupils understand historical time?
Some evidence from England and the Netherlands
One of the key aims of the English history National Curriculum is to ensure that pupils ‘know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative’. Teaching chronology is also important in the Netherlands. In this article we cover some aspects of teaching and recent research from...
How do pupils understand historical time?
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Reading into writing
Article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references are outdated.
Background The emphasis in pupil writing in the National Literacy Strategy is upon non-fiction genres (DfEE:1997; DfEE: 1998). Such genres are essential tools for life and are at the centre of an effective literacy programme (Wray...
Reading into writing
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Film: Berengaria of Navarre
History & Myth
In this talk Dr Gabrielle Storey discusses the life and times of Berengaria of Navarre, queen of England, lord of Le Mans, and wife of Richard I.
Berengaria of Navarre has been inaccurately labelled as the only queen never to have stepped foot in England. This talk will present new analysis...
Film: Berengaria of Navarre
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Geosong: a transition project
Primary History article
How do we engage young people with their Heritage, answer curriculum needs and make that big leap of transition from primary to secondary school that bit easier?
English Heritage's Geosong treasure hunt website went some way to providing answers. What does the website do? Using handheld GPS devices, groups must...
Geosong: a transition project
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Virtual Branch Recording: The Fall of the English Republic
Article
Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658 sparked a period of unrivalled turmoil and confusion in English history. In less than two years, there were close to ten changes of government; rival armies of Englishmen faced each other across the Scottish border; and the Long Parliament was finally dissolved after two decades.
Why...
Virtual Branch Recording: The Fall of the English Republic
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More than just the Henries: Britishness and British history at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current national curriculum
With the first teaching of a revised history curriculum due in September 2008 the debate over content and order is well under way. Robert Guyver, involved in the design of the curriculum development experiment that evolved into the 1991 version of...
More than just the Henries: Britishness and British history at Key Stage 3
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Triumphs Show: Diversifying the curriculum at A-level
Teaching History feature
There is a wealth of literature arguing for the importance of accommodating a wide range of perspectives and experiences in school history curricula. Many have contended that it is crucial to include the stories of those traditionally omitted from historical records in order to teach history well. Others have emphasised...
Triumphs Show: Diversifying the curriculum at A-level
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Teaching History 42
Journal
Editorial 2
History: A Most Crucial Element of the Curriculum, Gordon Batho 3
Report: Archives and Education in London 5
Towards a Nationally Agreed Framework I or the Teaching of Primary School History, T.D. Cook 6
Teaching Teachers: A Secondary History PGCE Course, Keith Jenkins 9
Bringing in the Horse,...
Teaching History 42
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Virtual Branch Recording: The Women of the Anarchy
Article
In 1135 Stephen of Blois usurped the throne, stealing it from his cousin Empress Matilda and sparking a nineteen-year civil war that would become known as the Anarchy, one of the bloodiest periods in English history. On the one side is Empress Matilda. On the other side is her cousin,...
Virtual Branch Recording: The Women of the Anarchy
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Film: Brezhnev's early life and career
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film Dr Edwin Bacon takes us through Brezhnev’s early life and career: his birth in Ukraine in 1906, the opportunities brought by the revolution, his role in the battle of Ukraine and his eventual arrival to the Politburo at the end of the 1950s. Dr Bacon looks at...
Film: Brezhnev's early life and career
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Historical anniversaries calendar
Article
Historical anniversaries can be a great way to get children and young people interested in a subject or to raise awareness about a particular issue.
This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality history and education resources along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of...
Historical anniversaries calendar
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What was Witchcraft in the Early Sixteenth Century?
Article
In this article, Dr Jonathan Durrant (Principal Lecturer in History, University of South Wales) argues that we know no more now than we did in the late 1980s about what witchcraft was as men and women of the early sixteenth century understood it. Dr Durrant looks at evidence from Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act of 1542 to explore British and European perceptions of witches...
What was Witchcraft in the Early Sixteenth Century?
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Questions you have always wanted to ask about...Using historical maps in the primary classroom
Primary History article
Anna Disney and Peter Hammond answer questions about historical maps.
Questions you have always wanted to ask about...Using historical maps in the primary classroom
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Teaching and learning about Grace O'Malley as a significant woman at Key Stage 1
Article
"Why are you so angry Grace?" Teaching and learning about Grace O'Malley as a significant woman at Key Stage 1
Grace O'Malley was an Irish queen in the Tudor period and her story provides insights about life in Ireland at the time of the Elizabethan conquests. Grace, also known as...
Teaching and learning about Grace O'Malley as a significant woman at Key Stage 1
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Family stories and global (hi)stories
Teaching History article
Teaching in Greece, a country with extensive recent experience of immigration, Maria Vlachaki and Georgia Kouseri were interested to examine how they might use family history as a means of exploring the historical dimensions of this potentially sensitive topic. They hoped that encouraging pupils to explore their relatives’ stories would...
Family stories and global (hi)stories
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Investigating Victorian mining disasters
Lesson Plan
Please note: these free resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.
In this series of lessons about two mining disasters, I integrated learning in history, literacy and ICT. As the children are an able group, I intended to challenge them to explore primary written sources, to identify differences between them, to...
Investigating Victorian mining disasters
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HA Membership guide
Primary membership
We are delighted to welcome you as a member of the Historical Association. By joining you’ve become part of a vibrant subject community made up of thousands of different people with a shared interest: history!
Whether you want to gain access to high quality teaching support, undertake training to help you...
HA Membership guide
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Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
Churchill's Great Game
In this HA Virtual Branch talk Professor Richard Toye explores Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’.
Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University...
Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
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Film: Building Anglo-Saxon England
Article
Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time the diversity of the Anglo-Saxon built environment. The book explores how the natural landscape was modified for human activity, and how settlements were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. It also shows how...
Film: Building Anglo-Saxon England
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The Historian 149: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 149: Pandemics
This edition of The Historian follows immediately after the annual Local and Community History Month, which we launched many years ago. Although our expressed purpose on this occasion is to place a special focus on the concept of pandemics and epidemics, a number of our...
The Historian 149: Out now
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Recorded Webinar: Resisting Reagan
Article
The 1980s are often viewed as marking the repudiation of the political order marked by the New Deal and the 1960s, both periods of enormous social, political, and cultural change. Yet the decade symbolised by President Ronald Reagan, far from being a period of triumphant conservative counterrevolution, was a period...
Recorded Webinar: Resisting Reagan
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CPD: Beyond the Ballot and Peterloo to the Pankhursts MOOCs
Secondary CPD from Royal Holloway, UK Parliament and People’s History Museum
Explore the history of the struggle for women’s suffrage and equality with this course developed by Royal Holloway, University of London, and the UK Parliament. With content from the Parliamentary Archives, the Women’s Library collection at the LSE Library and The National Archives; engaging videos, articles and quizzes; and a...
CPD: Beyond the Ballot and Peterloo to the Pankhursts MOOCs
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Film: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea
Article
Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War.
For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...
Film: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea
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Gunpowder plot at key stage 1
Lesson Plan
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot is a cracking tale for any age group, although the complex political and religious elements are difficult for young children to understand. However, we can help them to gain insights into past people's motivations and...
Gunpowder plot at key stage 1
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Houses: Artefacts from the past (KS1)
Lesson Plans
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
In these lessons we investigated real objects from late Victorian times. The aim was to enable the children to become more independent in their learning and to extend their literacy.
The two lessons described formed part of a Year 1 topic...
Houses: Artefacts from the past (KS1)
