“Big picture” history teaching emphasizes the connecting of specific historical events and links topics to broader themes and contexts. It involves placing local, national, and global events within a larger understanding of the past. This approach helps pupils to develop a deeper understanding of historical continuity and change, and the interconnectedness of different historical periods. It also underlines the fact, which comes as a big surprise to many children, that Britain was not always more advanced than countries far from our shores. It is important that we explore histories that do not involve looking at events from the perspective of the winners of recent history.
As we know, many pupils find it difficult to make comparisons between events within and between historical periods and the present and then place historical phenomena in the correct period. OFSTED has picked this up as a key weakness in primary history. This may
