Keystage history - Imaginative History Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools
About Keystage History
Keystage history is the home of best practice in primary and secondary history teaching and learning. You can totally trust the up-to-date, authoritative, cutting edge, expert advice on issues such as deep dive inspections and you will be inspired by all the creative planning and teaching ideas. Subscribers love the hundreds of fully resourced history lessons, all judged outstanding by a vastly experienced LA history adviser who has observed over 2,000 primary and secondary lessons and has carried out 60 national inspections for OFSTED. Every aspect of leading history 5-19 is covered in detail from rationales for curriculum planning, through to raising standards, assessment, progression and inspiring colleagues. This site is a must for any forward-looking subject leader.
Recently Added
Florence Nightingale – KQ1 – Why do we think Florence Nightingale is remembered? (New)
Pupils make deductions from a range of visual clues to see if they can work out what job Florence Nightingale did, before being told the story of her life through an illustrated PowerPoint presentation. Selected slides are then used to...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ2 – Why did Florence place herself in such danger by going to the Crimea? (New version 2021)
Who influenced her decision to go? Already introduced to the major events in Florence’s life, children now speculate on why she took the brave decision to go to the Crimea. Thinking creatively, they discuss who might have influenced her decision positively...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ3a – Fighting Fit. What did Florence do to improve the lives of the soldiers when she arrived in the Crimea? ( New version 2021)
In this lesson children compare the appalling conditions in the hospitals on Florence’s arrival at Scutari. With the help of animated rats!! They list the most significant problems and then compare with a hospital which had been transformed...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ3b – Smart task – What did people really think of Florence Nightingale?
moreLearning objectives
• children can respond in role showing awareness of differing attitudes to Florence • they can judge whether each group would approve of giving Florence a medalStarter
Start by slowly revealing a picture of the medal awarded to Florence (slide 2) and asking...
Florence Nightingale – KQ4a – What was Florence Nightingale’s greatest achievement?
Pupils have been drafted in to help with the wording on a statue to Florence Nightingale which had badly worn away over time and is now in danger of being indecipherable. But there is room for only 30 words on...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ4b – Florence Nightingale’s days are numbered. Brilliant cross-curricular History and Mathematics
Every so often you see an inspiring example of history and numeracy working together seamlessly. Such a lesson was taught by Ros Boulton of South Farnborough Infants. She wanted her children to do far more than draw a simple timeline...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ5 – How do we know so much about Florence Nightingale when she lived so long ago?
This differentiated core activity is Prove it! Working in pairs as detectives with their own find the clue sheets and clipboards, pupils are given 10 statements about Florence and have to find the original sources that helped historians to make...more
Gunpowder Plot Smart Task: Dear producer
Over the last few sessions, the children have become familiar with the story of the Gunpowder Plot using a range of strategies from ‘A moving story' and 'Prove it!' (see Outstanding Lessons), to role playing the arrest of Guy Fawkes...moreHow to get KS1 pupils into history-13 ideas
If you haven't already come across this School Run website offers 13 different ideas for making history come alive with your pupils, including games, story books, visits, history re-enactments etc. What i like about the list...more
Common assessment tasks in history at KS1
It is often difficult knowing how to assess pupils’ historical thinking at KS1. Are we simply testing literacy and /or recall? But what about historical understanding? Faced with this problem, I have been working with two large London primary schools....more
Florence Nightingale – KQ1 – Why do we think Florence Nightingale is remembered? (New)
Pupils make deductions from a range of visual clues to see if they can work out what job Florence Nightingale did, before being told the story of her life through an illustrated PowerPoint presentation. Selected slides are then used to...moreFlorence Nightingale – KQ2 – Why did Florence place herself in such danger by going to the Crimea? (New version 2021)
Who influenced her decision to go? Already introduced to the major events in Florence’s life, children now speculate on why she took the brave decision to go to the Crimea. Thinking creatively, they discuss who might have influenced her decision positively...moreFlorence Nightingale – KQ3a – Fighting Fit. What did Florence do to improve the lives of the soldiers when she arrived in the Crimea? ( New version 2021)
In this lesson children compare the appalling conditions in the hospitals on Florence’s arrival at Scutari. With the help of animated rats!! They list the most significant problems and then compare with a hospital which had been transformed...more
Florence Nightingale – KQ1 – Why do we think Florence Nightingale is remembered? (New)
Pupils make deductions from a range of visual clues to see if they can work out what job Florence Nightingale did, before being told the story of her life through an illustrated PowerPoint presentation. Selected slides are then used to...moreFlorence Nightingale – KQ2 – Why did Florence place herself in such danger by going to the Crimea? (New version 2021)
Who influenced her decision to go? Already introduced to the major events in Florence’s life, children now speculate on why she took the brave decision to go to the Crimea. Thinking creatively, they discuss who might have influenced her decision positively...moreFlorence Nightingale – KQ3a – Fighting Fit. What did Florence do to improve the lives of the soldiers when she arrived in the Crimea? ( New version 2021)
In this lesson children compare the appalling conditions in the hospitals on Florence’s arrival at Scutari. With the help of animated rats!! They list the most significant problems and then compare with a hospital which had been transformed...more
Outstanding Scheme of Work for Stone Age to Iron Age
This scheme of work, judged outstanding by an OFSTED history inspector now links to all the fully-resourced outstanding lessons and activities making the teaching of this topic completely self-contained. Not only does it ensure that you cover all the significant...more
Planner for Britain at War: The Home Front 1939-45
The new detailed downloadable planner below has key questions, suggested activities, resources and assessments for teaching The Home Front in World War Two at KS2 and links with the lessons on the site. It has been released, on teachers'...more
Stone Age to Iron Age – KQ1 – Outstanding Lesson on the Old Stone Age
moreIs it true to say that Stone Age man was just a simple hunter gatherer only interested in food and shelter? Key Question 1
This KS2 outstanding history lesson on the Stone Age revolves around the reveal of an object found...
Teaching the British Empire KS3
In a recent article for the Telegraph, journalist and writer Jeremy Paxman made the following case for teaching the history of the British Empire: [It] explains so much about who we are now… Imperial history explains both why Britain has a...more
Teaching Industrial Britain to Key Stage 3
We all know that this is a vast topic and one that some colleagues have difficulty with in motivating some students. You will find very little on the Four Field crop rotation here, or mules and Spinning Jennies, but there...more
Teaching the 20th Century World to Key Stage 3
For many pupils this will be their last topic in KS3 history, though some history departments prefer to end with a retrospective long term study. Most pupils enjoy the 20th century, though we need to ensure it is not just...more
New evidence of Anglo-Saxon mutilations as punishment
Ninth-century England was a bad place to be a criminal, new findings suggest. The skull of an Anglo-Saxon teenager discovered in Hampshire shows that she had her nose and upper lip cut off and may have been scalped too.Written evidence of...more
Teaching Germany 1919-45
Hodder produce some of the best GCSE books on Germany whether for the Modern World and for the SHP Depth Module. They have now added an innovative digital dimension with great web links and activities. Resource on Hitler...moreEvaluating websites in history at KS3-5: 3 pieces of top advice
Students are too trusting of what they read on the Internet. Most striking, they implicitly trust Google to verify sources for them--whatever Google lists first must be a good source. As we know, many are there because they paid to...more
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About Me
Neil acts as an educational consultant for history for schools throughout the country. After teaching for 12 years, during which time he ran two departments and was a member of the Senior Leadership, Neil moved into advisory work,
For 18 years, he supported 70 secondary and 450 primary and special schools in Hampshire during which time he carried out over 60 national OFSTED inspections. More recently he has been heavily involved in running about 40 highly acclaimed national training courses a year for primary and secondary history teachers, as well as bespoke whole staff INSET days in primary schools.
