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How significant was Magna Carta? SMART TASK KS3

Pupils have been commissioned to produce two brief podcasts for the British Library website aimed at a teenage audience. The…

Teaching Primary History: Life in Britain 1930-1945 at Key Stage 2

Inexplicably axed by Gove from the 2014 curriculum, my advice is to carry on teaching this highly successful unit focusing…

Teaching In Living Memory to Key Stage 1

Within living memory is one of the periods of time KS1 pupils need to study. At first sight it might…

Polly put the kettle on. Learning about then and now, past and present

This is one of a series of 3 separate sessions on different nursery rhymes, building up children’s understanding of the…

Can we help our American millionaire to make his castle come alive? SMART TASK

This activity uses the idea of the Mantle of the Expert to engage children in a serious, real-life task. A…

Spying on your rival lord’s latest new castle

This is a really fun way of helping children to look closely at the detail of a medieval castle. They…

Great short 5 minute video on Vikings guaranteed fun!

If you’re looking for a clever, funny and informative overview of the Vikings that your Y5s will really enjoy go…

Bonfire Night when Granny was a girl: Smart Task

These activities have been designed for the current curriculum, covering the past within living memory and commemorative events. The three…

Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 3 – How Great is your Greek?

Pupils have to select a team of 11 Great Greeks. They do this by preparing and then evaluating 14 different…

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Washday in the past; helping the hopeless Mr Lather

The children will be familiar with the range of processes involved in washing clothes in the past. They will have…

Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 4 – What did the Greeks do for us? Evaluating the video

This task puts pupils in the position as evaluators of a BBC film: BBC Bitesize – Watch: What did the…

Animation of labels for this cartoon allow understanding to be built progressively

The learning approach in history at Key Stage 4

Learning in Key Stage 4 history lessons is nearly always good but rarely is it outstanding. Because we are so…

Learning Activities: Key Stage 4

Most evidence of history teaching at Key Stage 4 comes from OFSTED reports which repeatedly paint a picture of highly…

Learning at Key Stage 3

This section of the site has been designed to bring greater variety to learning and to work towards making pupils…

Independence History at KS3 and GCSE

Independent Enquirers Learners can develop as independent enquirers when they are provided with opportunities in history to: explore for themselves…

View of learners in history at Key Stage 3

With the increasing emphasis now being placed on the ‘pupil voice’, it is important that we make use of feedback…

Roles for Learners: KS3

In addition to thinking of imaginative and motivating activities for our lessons, it is often helpful to think about the…

Pupil's analogy diagram on the causes of World War Two. Czechoslovakia's head is being served on a plate to Hitler

20 Imaginative products in history at Key Stage 3

This section is included to jog your memory about the range of outcomes that might be expected and to promote…

The learning process at Key Stage 3

Far from being ‘just theory’, understanding how children learn in history underpins all the decisions we make in our classrooms. …

Using a Victorian census to discover what life was like 100 years ago SMART TASK

There are 4 separate ways of approaching this topic, each becoming increasingly more ambitious. Stage 1 only is featured below. …

ICT and Film in history at Key Stage 2

You may think it surprising that film and ICT appear together and not separately. Wit hthe advent of digitisation and…

Strategies for using artefacts in teaching history at KS2

Nobody would seriously doubt the value of using artefacts in history at Key Stage 1, but at Key Stage 2…

Teaching Interpretations at Key Stage 2

Although challenging, teaching interpretations in history at KS2 level is immensely rewarding when you see the ‘penny drop’ in pupils’…

Teaching enquiry in history at Key Stage 2

You will hear a lot spoken about historical enquiry, but very little written down and easily accessible. Given its central…

Fit for purpose history teaching strategies at Key Stage 1 and 2

As primary schools have been so heavily criticised by OFSTED for failing to select strategies that are fit for purpose,…

What makes an outstanding history lesson at KS2?

With very little national guidance now coming from OFSTED by way of revisions to the subject-specific criteria for outstanding primary…

The teaching process in history at KS2

Key Stage 2 history teaching is often unfairly caricatured as a teacher telling interested pupils lots of interesting stories: fun…

Help Tom to fight the Great Fire. Smart Task

This ICT based activity draws heavily on the superb new website created as a joint enterprise by the National Archives,…

Long-term planning at Key Stage 2

The advent of the new curriculum for history marked the most significant change in your school’s history planning for over…

Short-term planning in history at KS2

As a rule, this site does not recommend the publication of short-term planning, preferring instead to focus on very detailed…

History and literacy at Key Stage 2

Although OFSTED still points out that opportunities for exploiting the link between history and literacy are still being overlooked, the…

KS1 : Going to the Seaside-the mystery of the pier

One of the more interesting features of the Seaside holidays topic is the fact that it opens up discussion, even…

Views of learners in history at Key Stage 2

There has been very little published research on the views of KS2 pupils on their history work, other than lots…

The learning process in history at KS2

Given that this site specialises in giving practical support to busy teachers and subject leaders, you may be surprised to…

Roles of learners

One of the best ways of exciting young children in history is to put them in role. Dorothy Heathcote’s approach…

Left luggage activity on the Titanic using artefacts provided by a Southampton Museum

Imaginative history outcomes at Key Stage 1

A key part of motivating infants in history is providing interesting practical products that really stimulate their interest. When so…

50 imaginative history learning activities for KS1

This ground-breaking section offers a massive range of ideas, arranged in alphabetical order. Some of the titles may seem a…

Are we fair to the Vikings? A question of interpretation. SMART TASK KS2

Pupils are shown a range of stereotypical images of Vikings, using slides 2 and 3. This should be used to…

Testing a simple hypothesis about where the early Anglo-Saxons lived and how we know

This ambitious but engaging lesson asks children to test some simple hypotheses about where the early Saxons settled. They start…

When Prohibition was so popular when it was introduced, why had it failed within 12 years? SMART TASK

In this varied series of activities, students predict from pictures, categorise influence cards, and create a tweet before structuring an…

Raising attainment at Key Stage 4

This section of the site contains four different types of advice. There is general advice, outlining factors that usually explain…

Italian foreign policy-outstanding lesson

At what point did Mussolini seem to side more with Germany than with Britain or France? Students arrive at the…

‘Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule was a calculated political act’. Assess the validity of this claim

Start by posing the question as a puzzle to be solved. Why would Gladstone convert so suddenly to Home Rule…

Using Fiction: teaching Stone Age to Bronze Age in history at KS2

Using Boy with the Bronze Axe by Kathleen Fidler to help you teach Stone Age to Bronze Age and Skara…

The Empire strikes back! SMART TASK KS3

Having previously investigated the criticism of empire, students now set about defending it. After studying a contemporary Indian view of…

Teaching source work imaginatively in AS and A2 history

Imaginative approaches to source work Again, 10 examples are provided on a separate PowerPoint presentation. The approach has been to…

Curriculum planning for post-16 history

As all schools and colleges have their own schemes of work I have not made the modelling of good schemes…

Why should Mary Anning be remembered? Have your say. SMART TASK

In Lyme Regis they are going to improve their Museum dedicated to Mary Anning. It will cost a lot of…

New brilliantly differentiated lesson on Tudor theatre for KS2: 5 great differentiation strategies that don’t need masses of prep.

New brilliantly differentiated lesson on Tudor theatre for KS2: 5 great differentiation strategies that don’t need masses of prep. You…

Inclusion at Key Stage 1

In addition to advice on: being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution etc, this site focuses…

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