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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Teaching KS1 pupils to question the ‘FACTS’ about Great Fire; focus on number of deaths
Take the simple assertion in most books pupils will come across, that only 6 deaths resulted from the blaze.
- Do the pupils find this surprising ,given the number of houses burnt...
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One of the drawbacks of being a historian is you just can’t help yourself when it comes to looking at historical documents.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....Top 10 things your KS2 pupils need to know – Early Islamic civilization
Top 10 things your KS2 pupils need to know, and remember, about Early Islamic civilization1. 1000 years of extraordinary activity after AD 700
For approximately 1000 years, after AD 700, there was an extraordinary amount of activity from Baghdad to North...Top 10 things your pupils need to know – Roman Britain
Top 10 things your pupils need to know about Roman Britain1. Roman Britain was part of a huge empire ruled from Rome
Roman Britain was part of a huge empire ruled from Rome which lasted hundreds of years from AD43 to...
I’m a new subject leader. How do I know if pupils are making the progress they should in history?
Getting a handle on progression is complicated. There are lots of superficially appealing lists of competencies that link to each age group each produced by commercial companies who have not understanding of the nuances of progression. One example, which should...
Knowledge rich: necessary but surely not sufficient? Or 5 good reasons not to listen to Nick Gibb, the schools minister
In a speech delivered last week, July 21,2021, we had to read, or listen to, the same ill-informed clap-trap from a government minister banging on about the knowledge-rich curriculum as if that was the only issue that mattered. in history...
10 vital things primary history subject leaders should draw from OFSTED’s review July 2021
On 14 July 2021 OFSTED published its lengthy review of research findings into school history. You can access it here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-review-series-history/research-review-series-history I actually think there are good reasons NOT to read its 40-odd pages just at the moment, and...History in outstanding primary schools – OFSTED’s view of strengths and weaknesses April 2021
Posted by:Tim Jenner HMI, Subject Lead for History, Tim Jenner HMI, Ofsted’s subject lead for history report April 2021, reports on the findings from our history subject inspections. Between January and March 2020, we inspected the quality of history education in...
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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.
