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. Our 3,000+ active users 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.
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Berlin Wall – If relations between the superpowers were improving in the late 50s, why was the Berlin wall built in 1961? A Bone in the throat
This multi-faceted session starts with students having to shape their understanding of the reasons for the building of the Berlin wall in 5 optional ways:- Read the historian’s mind. Students are presented with a historian’s view of how the causes...
Migration – If England was the safest place in Europe for Jews to live in Henry II’s reign, why then did Edward I expel them just 100 years later?
By posing this enquiry question in a slightly paradoxical way, students are encouraged to go deeper in the explanation than simple anti-semitism. Having steered them through a simple narrative covering the Jews in England 1066-1290, looking all the time for...
What would your pupils say about getting better at history, when they leave your school?
Recently two university education departments carried out a broad-sweep survey of primary pupils’ experience of history at KS1 and 2 and asked specifically:"What does it mean to get better at history?”
The pupils’ answers were, to a large extent, predictable and...
Excerpt from recent OFSTED report from 2021
As its impossible for you to know what comments OFSTED are making when commenting on history in individual schools, we undertake a systematic trawl from time to time to ensure that our advice about OFSTED’s comment is bang up-to-date. Here...
6 signs to look for to show your pupils are becoming historically literate
1. Understanding how it is possible to know about the past
Pupils show an understanding of how it is possible to know about the past, even though there is no one alive today who has experienced it.2. Understanding that peoples's claims...
How did Guy Fawkes feel before, during and after the night of the 5th November: pupils do the thinking.
Getting children to think about how Guy Fawkes felt, before, during and after the Gunpowder plot. This simple task, resourced by a short PowerPoint presentation (not provided, but use images from existing ones on our site) , asks children to consider...
Teaching KS1 pupils to question the ‘FACTS’ about Great Fire; focus on number of deaths
Take the simple assertion (to found in in most books pupils will come across), that only 6 deaths resulted from the blaze.- Do the pupils find this surprising , given the very large number of houses burnt down?
- So is...
It’s time time to think about the teaching of time at KS1 and 2
Time is probably the concept most fundamental to understanding history. This presents problems, of course, particularly with the youngest children.Just because its a slippery concept doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan how we are going to introduce and develop a sense...The state of primary history 25 years on
One of the drawbacks of being a historian is you just can’t help yourself when it comes to looking at historical documents. Yesterday,I came across my copy of HMI’s report on the state of history 25 years ago. Some ofthose...
Take a new look at assessment in history in your school.
Now is the perfect time to get your assessment system for history in better shape. If colleagues know the criteria against which pupils’ work in history will be judged (and I don’t mean (effectively) literacy!) then the pupils’ work will...
Scales of planning in primary history
Making sure you don’t leave out key things and don’t waste your time duplicating
Planning can seem a real chore, but it is key not only to maximising the opportunities for pupils to build up a coherent view of the past,...
Everything you wanted to know about progression in history at KS2 but couldn’t find anywhere!
Progression in history at KS2: part of your preparation for an OFSTED history deep dive
Planning for progression in history is difficult, very difficult. You will be hard pressed to find any advice on any website which secures colleagues’ understanding in...
5 key tasks for the history subject leader
Being a history subject leader can often be daunting, especially if you have received very little training and have no avowed expertise in this area. It can also be overwhelming and difficult to know where exactly to expend the limited...
10 top dos and don’ts of using knowledge organisers in primary history
Used well, knowledge organisers are a really powerful resources but it all depends on how they are used. However attractive and packed with facts it might appear, if it just sits inertly with very little pupil interaction with it, then...
How well did Chamberlain play his cards at Munich? A KS3 smart task
This smart task asks pupils to think a little more deeply about why Chamberlain adopted the policy of appeasement. It is so easy to lampoon him as a naive who was easily duped by Hitler. He should have known better....
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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.
