School history has been seen as a major platform for the construction of collective memory in contemporary societies. In recent years considerable attention has been brought to what stories students bring with them into the classroom. However, this research has mainly been carried out in the Western world and less so in the postcolonial states of Africa. In 2012 Uganda celebrated 50 years as an independent state after being colonized for more than half a century. Since Independence, Uganda has experienced a period of both political turmoil and civil war within its constructed colonial borders. Given these historical experiences, what do Ugandan students find important about their nation’s history and what history do they relate to when asked to explain their contemporary society and possibly envisage for their future? This study explores 219 narratives written by 73 Ugandan upper secondary students. Narratives elicited through written responses to three assignments. The assignments were designed to capture different approaches to history: a prospective and a retrospective approach. To handle the concept of ‘nation’ as a presupposed category and possibly different colonial  and postcolonial experiences within Uganda the student narrative sampling were chosen from two different regions; Central and Northern Uganda. In engaging with analysis narrative analysis has been used as a method to explore what the students regarded as historically significant and what patterns among the narratives that point towards particular historical orientations. The findings suggest that Ugandan students’ historical orientation is informed and dependent on the local context of the students. Furthermore, the empirical results show how different approaches to history influence the student narratives. For instance, valued judgments on past developments were more common with the retrospective approach. Students from Northern Uganda were generally more inclined to tell a story of decline.