Dawn Woods, Member Development Librarian, and Hannah Groves, Marketing and Communications Officer, School Library Association

If there is one subject a librarian can help teaching colleagues with, it is definitely history. From providing engaging reads for primary pupils to assisting with A-Level research for the curriculum or supporting EPQ projects, the school library is home to a wealth of resources.

For primary pupils, a history topic may start with a novel set during the period to be studied. Historical novels take the reader back to explore how life was during that time and can help explain the historical context. Library staff will be able to suggest a range of suitable titles to help with this, whatever the period.

GCSE-level students will be expected to read around the subject to complete their homework, and so the librarian will introduce pupils to the library catalogue to help them locate the resources available to them. As well as hardcopy books, e-books and online journals will be catalogued under subject headings, so students searching for their history topic are alerted to what the library holds on that subject, whatever the media format. By the time students are on their A-Level course, they will be using these to research curriculum topics and, in the case of the EPQ, on topics of their own choice.

Here are three key ways your school library can support the teaching of history:

1. Use the library catalogue as a research tool

School library staff will teach students that the library catalogue is a gateway to resources in many formats, all grouped under keyword headings, preparing our young people for independent learning. Once students go on to university they will require this very skill, so they will be well prepared for further study. 

2. Share curated content and resources

Some libraries may present students with resources as a reading list, some may have Padlets or other online presentations. The value of these online presentations is that they take pupils directly to the sites librarians have already earmarked as useful for the topic. As Padlets contain all types of content – whether that be text, documents, images, videos or weblinks – librarians can bring together a wide range of material for a particular class or year group and subject. For example, this Padlet on ‘history for all ages’ contains reading lists as well as weblinks to safe sites for primary and secondary students. This means that young people are not wasting time finding unsuitable resources, which may lead them to the wrong conclusions.

3. Subscribe to online journals

If your school offers the EPQ, where older secondary students choose their own topic, students must research this themselves. The library is integral to this and subscriptions to online journals can help enormously here. The topic students are researching may be very specific and not generally covered in published books which, by the very nature of going through the publishing process, take a long time to be available. Research written up in journals is current and academically verified, so with a subscription to a resource such as JSTOR students have access to “peer-reviewed scholarly journals, respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports, and primary sources from libraries’ special collections and archives.” [Another example is Hodder’s Review magazines, which NACE members recently trialled.]

The school library and library staff are your friends when teaching history to learners of any age, so do make sure you use their resources to save time for all.

About the School Library Association

The School Library Association (SLA) is a charity that works towards all schools in the UK having their own (or shared) staffed library. Our vision is for all school staff and children to have access to a wide and varied range of resources and have the support of an expert guide in reading, research, media and information literacy. To find out more about what the SLA could do for you, visit our website, follow us on Twitter, or get in touch.

Read more:

• Diversifying the history curriculum: how to embed challenge and confront misconceptions
• How can we identify and challenge more able learners in history?
• 3 ways to challenge more able students in secondary history