Visiting over 300 primary schools in my career, several of them many times over, during many years as a primary history adviser, I have come across a vast range of classroom strategies being used, but not always to good effect. If I take teaching about Henry VIII and the way he ran the country I invariably encountered lessons on Henry and his six wives, accompanied by the inevitable rhyme. So far, so good. But what strategies were used to deepen pupils’ learning after their initial enthusiasm had been aroused and the sequence of the queens and their fates established?
Here are just a few of the runners and riders, many of which failed to clear the first fence! This is not to disparage any activity in its own right, providing pupils are well-enough informed to make the most of it. All too often, however, pupils remember the activity long after
