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Film: An Introduction to Lesson Planning (Parts 1-5)
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series. In this two part film, Rachel Foster (teaching associate and secondary PGCE lead at the university of Cambridge) explores the key principles and processes of lesson planning for new teachers. View the second part here.
This series is designed to support beginning history...
Film: An Introduction to Lesson Planning (Parts 1-5)
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Where might the Gunpowder Plot sit within the principles of the new model curriculum?
Primary History article
The government has proposed creating a model curriculum for history. This will contain a range of non-statutory and supplementary guidance to focus history teaching. In July 2022, terms of reference to identify principles and approaches underpinning the model history curriculum were published. There will be an advisory panel that will...
Where might the Gunpowder Plot sit within the principles of the new model curriculum?
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Using diaries to stimulate children's understanding of the past
Primary History article
Children develop their understanding of the past through a range of historical sources of evidence. Written sources may provide different types of information for children to work from. Records such as census returns or street directories provide information about families and tradespeople living in a particular communities and old maps...
Using diaries to stimulate children's understanding of the past
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Chronology - an Olympic timeline
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Pat Hoodless illuminates how chronology can provide a spine, a backbone and an ‘essential framework' to support and shape pupil learning of NC History.
The Olympic movement provides the perfect opportunity to consider the broad sweep...
Chronology - an Olympic timeline
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Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
Historian feature
In this article, Rob Pritchard reflects on his long-standing engagement with the Black Country Living Museum, exploring how visits to this ‘living history’ site transformed his approach to teaching history...
Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
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The right to fight: women’s boxing in Britain
Historian article
In this article Matthew Taylor explores the history of women’s boxing in Britain from the early eighteenth century onwards, showing how prevailing gender norms have led to this activity being marginalised by historians. It is argued that the key women boxers he discusses should be celebrated as key figures, not just in the history of sport but...
The right to fight: women’s boxing in Britain
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Beyond slavery
Teaching History article
Influenced by her own experiences, preliminary research, and recent political events, Teni Oladehin sought to thoroughly review how Black history was introduced to her students at Key Stage 3. In particular, she aimed to introduce Black history with an ‘authentic’ narrative which brought Black agency into the foreground. In this article, Oladehin shows how an enquiry on the significance of Mansa Musa both...
Beyond slavery
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Support Us
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As a charity the HA is completely independent of any government or statutory support, so we rely heavily on the work of volunteers (branch officers, workshop leaders and contributors to our publications). We also need donations and legacies to develop new resources and to help ensure everyone can access great...
Support Us
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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 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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Move Me On 172: Not just relying on the textbook
Teaching History journal feature
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 172: Not just relying on the textbook
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What’s The Wisdom On... Extended Reading
Teaching History feature
Why, in a history lesson (or out of a history lesson; let’s say, for a homework perhaps) might we want pupils to read more than a paragraph, to stay with the text, to actually read? We don’t mean plucking facts from information boxes, nor ploughing through four comprehension questions. We...
What’s The Wisdom On... Extended Reading
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Move Me On 173: teaching the GCSE thematic study
The problem page for history mentors
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 173: teaching the GCSE thematic study
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Richmond Branch Inter-School Historical Balloon Debate Podcasts
Branch Podcast
Richmond Branch held a series of inter-school historical balloon debates at Putney High School on Thursday 15th March 2012.We podcasted the Under 18 debate and have made the excellent and entertaining presentations available to you here.Each school team were asked represent their character over 4 minutes to convince the judges...
Richmond Branch Inter-School Historical Balloon Debate Podcasts
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A complex empire: National Archives Learning Curve takes on the British Empire
Teaching History article
Ben Walsh describes some of the rationale behind the construction of the new Learning Curve exhibition on the British Empire and, in so doing, makes a strong case for placing empire generally and the British Empire in particular at the heart of historical study for all teenagers. A complex and...
A complex empire: National Archives Learning Curve takes on the British Empire
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Time and Place; Using a Local Historical Site with Key Stage 2 and 3
Time and Place
English Heritage and the Historical Association have teamed up to provide this great new CPD guide to getting the most out of local historical sites with your classes. This easy to follow unit provides the basis for an entire unit of local study using the built heritage around you. Examples...
Time and Place; Using a Local Historical Site with Key Stage 2 and 3
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Year 7 use oral traditions to make claims about the rise and fall of the Inka empire
Teaching History article
As part of her department’s effort to diversify the history curriculum, Paula Worth began a quest to research and then shape a lesson sequence around the Inkas. Her article shows how she allowed the new topic and its historiography to challenge and extend her own use of sources, particularly oral tradition....
Year 7 use oral traditions to make claims about the rise and fall of the Inka empire
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Let's see what's under the blue square...': getting pupils to track their own thinking
Teaching History article
Trainee teachers Suzie Bunyan and Anna Marshall explain why they decided to devise an activity in which they made a big fuss of a just one visual source. As beginning teachers they were also focusing on aspects of their own professional learning. They had decided to extend their skills in...
Let's see what's under the blue square...': getting pupils to track their own thinking
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Move Me On 171: Using existing lesson plans
The problem page for history mentors
The 'Move Me On' feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher...
Move Me On 171: Using existing lesson plans
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Move Me On 170: adapting to a second school
The problem page for history mentors
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 170: adapting to a second school
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The Bigger Picture: The Wider World
HA Primary Subject Leader Area
Perhaps the most important part of the History National Curriculum is the very first paragraph – the Purpose of Study Statement. A crucial part of this section is the very first sentence: ‘A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that...
The Bigger Picture: The Wider World
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Fifties Britain through the senses: ‘never had it so good’?
Teaching History article
Maya Stiasny was faced with difficulties familiar to many of us. Her new Year 12 students were struggling to get to grips with a new period of history. They were not interrogating primary sources with sufficient vigour. Her solution, detailed here, was novel. Working on the rich social history of post-war...
Fifties Britain through the senses: ‘never had it so good’?
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‘But they just sit there’: using objects as material culture with Year 8
Teaching History article
Having specialised in the history of material culture during her degree, Gabriella West was struck by the dismissive attitude of her pupils towards the study of material objects from the past. She therefore set out to find the perfect object through which to induct her Year 8 pupils into the history...
‘But they just sit there’: using objects as material culture with Year 8
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How including histories of trees can connect the past with the present and the future
Teaching History article
Barbara Trapani’s article sprung from, and is written in, hope. Through introducing the history of, specifically, Europeans’ relationships with trees in Madeira, the Banda Islands and Britain, Trapani enabled her Year 8 pupils to appreciate the ways in which exploitative nations have used irreplaceable resources and profoundly altered ecosystems and landscapes...
How including histories of trees can connect the past with the present and the future
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Film: Formative Assessment
Teaching History for Beginners webinar series
This film continues our Teaching History for Beginners filmed webinar series.
Sally Thorne has been a History teacher since 2003 and is currently Head of History at a secondary school in Bristol. She is also a GCSE examiner, textbook author, conference speaker and SHP adviser. In this short film, Sally unpacks formative assessment.
Film: Formative Assessment
