This chapter is a dicussion of research in progress and is not a definitive account of children’s ideas about history. The authors set out to discuss some of their aims with the research, some of their assumptions and the results of their research as it stands concerning children’s perceptions and conceptions of  history. They wish to explemplify rather than make general claims as they had not yet completed the research at the time of publication. They begin with a context of the research, which centers on children’s understanding and the expectations for children in the compulsory years of schooling in history in the UK. Teachers wished to move away from the rote memorization of facts to a progression in students’ understanding of history. The authors discuss the History 13-16 study completed by Shemilt and the CHATA Project, within which the authors examine some methodological and conceptual issues including investigating children’s ideas of history; the lack of presentisim in history; philosophical historical concepts; inference of historical ideas; varied substantive content of history; stability, levels and progression; and the construction of models of progression. The authors discuss the hypothesis of CHATA, which is that children employ a somewhat stable set of ideas to handle historical tasks. The authors discuss of how they wish to develop an understanding of children’s ideas about causal explanation of history using three divisions: reasons, enabling conditions, and causal antecedents. They discuss their current research findings within each of these areas using examples from their research subjects. They conclude that their chapter does not make final claims as they have not yet analyzed the data completely and they wish to offer precision and not speculation. They hope that the interim report will aid other researchers in history education.