The Historical Association (HA) is a membership charity incorporated by Royal Charter. It was founded in 1906 and exists to support the teaching, learning and enjoyment of history at all levels and to bring together people who share an interest in and love for the past. A small secretariat of 13 paid staff organises a membership of over 8000 people and institutions (including over 4000 schools) across the UK. The work of the HA can be summarised as:
1) Organising public history events, primarily through a network of local branches across the country which are staffed by volunteers.
2) Work with a network of academic historians concerned with high quality teaching and research, including the publication the journals ‘History’ and ‘The Historian’
3) Supporting the development of high quality history education in UK schools (for children aged 5-18) via being the voice for school history with policy makers, research, collaboration with other stakeholders (including assessment bodies and textbook publishers) and provision of high quality continuing professional development for teachers in a wide variety of forms e.g national and local teacher conferences, online webinars, the journals (Teaching History and Primary History), student and teacher resources online, podcasts etc. To support the Governing Council and the Secretariat in this work, we have primary and secondary education committees made up of volunteer history teachers and teacher educators.