Plotting your choice, and sequence, of topics at KS1 is much more difficult than many people imagine. And you can’t blame over-prescriptive content. The issue relating to what to choose and when to introduce topics in KS1 are complex: how much attention should you pay to local history; how much to chronology; how much attention should you pay to diversity issues; how much you should be influenced by what happens at Key stage 2?
Let’s look at some real life examples and draw the principles from the practice.
Issue 1
In one school, which had hitherto taught Mary Anning as a ‘famous’ person, the staff decided to stop teaching her because she is part of the KS2 science curriculum. Their rationale was that taking Mary out of KS1 ( knowing pupils would encounter her later in KS2) created space within the KS1 topic map to look at an additional person
