Chronology

Knowledge of chronology is about much more than remembering dates and understanding the terms and conventions used to label different periods of time – important as these are.  A secure knowledge of the order of events necessarily underpins any attempt to explain cause and consequence or to chart the process of change and continuity. Unfortunately, simply teaching history in order is not enough in itself to equip young people with a basic chronological framework, enabling them to relate different items of knowledge to one another or to construct an overarching ‘big picture’. Establishing such a framework requires deliberate, sustained attention. The resources in this section show how various strategies – including teaching an outline framework at the start of a new period or thematic study and different approaches to reviewing broad sweeps of time at the end of a school year or key stage, as well careful coordination of overview and depth studies – all play a part in building such knowledge.  

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  • Year 7 use oral traditions to make claims about the rise and fall of the Inka empire

    Article

    As part of her department’s effort to diversify the history curriculum, Paula Worth began a quest to research and then shape a lesson sequence around the Inkas. Her article shows how she allowed the new topic and its historiography to challenge and extend her own use of sources, particularly oral tradition....

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  • ‘Man, people in the past were indeed stupid’

    Article

    In this article, which is based on Huijgen’s PhD dissertation Balancing between the past and the present, Tim Huijgen and Paul Holthuis present the results of an experimental method of teaching 14–16-year-old students to contextualise their historical studies in a different way. In the four lessons described, students’ initial reactions...

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