How will your school commemorate the end of World War One in 2018?

This short advice sheet invites schools to consider how they will commemorate the centenary of armistice day and provides an illustrated PowerPoint presentation offering 8 attractive ideas to set you thinking. This supports two outstanding lessons that feature on the website: What do we...

What did people do at the seaside 100 years ago? KQ2

From mime to movie. SMART TASK

This fun activity is carried out by children working on tables of six. Half the class work on one image, the other half on another interesting image. Each table is given an A4 colour picture either A or B. For...

The Gunpowder Plot: Prove it using a gallery of images

This skilfully differentiated lesson places pupils in the role of detectives that have to find evidence to back up statements that have been made about the Gunpowder plot. They are given responsibility for a range of statements carefully matched to their learning needs. They work...

Grace Darling: setting up the enquiry

This is the first lesson on an enquiry into Grace Darling: what she did, and why she was famous. The kernel of the lesson is a slow reveal activity which works really well on an Interactive White Board. The key image comes from the...

Help Tom to fight the Great Fire. Smart Task

This ICT based activity draws heavily on the superb new website created as a joint enterprise by the National Archives, National Portrait Gallery, Museum of London and London Fire Brigade Museum. It appears on the Learning Curve section of the National Archives site. The interactive...

New theory on sinking of the Titanic

Left luggage activity on the Titanic using artefacts provided by a Southampton Museum

Those of you teaching the great KS1 topic on the sinking of the Titanic will be interested to know that the debate still goes. What we term a history mystery in the outstanding lesson, certainly is every bit a mystery. Now, 30 years of further...

Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Mary Anning

She sells sea shells: planning a topic on Mary Anning, Dinosaur hunter, using the Anholt's Stone girl, Bone girl “Would you like to go Dinosaur hunting? Well one young girl did when she wasn’t much older than you and became famous all over the world." The sample page...

Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Planning for a cross-curricular topic on Going to the Seaside

This advice is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to integrate history, geography, literacy and ICT.

Start the topic with a brief discussion with the children about where they are going on their summer holidays this year or...

The Ups and Downs of Mary Anning’s life

This lesson focuses on helping pupils to move beyond simple story telling and sequencing to thinking about the effect that each event in her life had on Mary. By encouraging pupils to think in terms of happy and sad events, you will help them build...

Florence Nightingale Lesson and sample planner

Fighting Fit. What did Florence do to improve the lives of the soldiers when she arrived in the Crimea? One example of a series of lessons for teaching Florence Nightingale as part of your KS1 history. A sample from the full planner in the medium term...

Assessment for learning in Primary history

Assessment for Learning is much vaunted and many faceted. If we break down what it means in its constituent parts, many of you will feel that you do most of that already, and you probably do. What the Primary Strategy is pushing is a more...

Long term planning for history at Key Stage 1

Superficially, Key Stage1 seems the least complex history curriculum to plan because the burden of content to be covered seems manageable. Scratch beneath the short section that describes the demands of Key Stage 1 history and you'll find lurking some significant issues to be resolved....

Thinking skills in history at Key Stage 1

There is nothing particularly radical about using a thinking skills approach to history at Key Stage 1, but there are certainly two main pitfalls that snare the unwary. The first lies in the area of metacognition, that part of the lesson where pupils think about...

Curriculum models for KS1 history

It seems a logical extension of the advice on long-term planning of the 2014 curriculum to offer you some models of what it might look like. As you know, the devil is in the detail. With the current emphasis firmly on a more cross-curricular approach...

What do we remember on Poppy Day / Remembrance Day?

This session revolves around a PowerPoint presentation which poses 6 significant questions, each designed to encourage pupils to think and to share their knowledge and understanding of this annual event.

Question 1

Who and what do we remember on Poppy Day? Show PowerPoint slide 2 which shows poppies...

Smart Task: Key Stage 1

Key Stage 1 assessment in history

It is really hard to find quality examples of assessment tasks at Key Stage 1 that actually work in the classroom with children of all abilities, especially the youngest children. New to the site is one such task...

KQ5 Smart task Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Who said it? / Who am I?

This simple task encourages children to spot the differences between Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. With a large A4 image of Florence on one side, and Mary Seacole on the other, you sit with a pack of cards which contain statements made by, or about, one...

Keystage 1 Free Samples

How will your school commemorate the end of World War One in 2018?

What did people do at the seaside 100 years ago? KQ2

From mime to movie. SMART TASK

The Gunpowder Plot: Prove it using a gallery of images

Grace Darling: setting up the enquiry

Help Tom to fight the Great Fire. Smart Task

New theory on sinking of the Titanic

Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Mary Anning

Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Planning for a cross-curricular topic on Going to the Seaside

This advice is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to integrate history, geography, literacy and ICT.

The Ups and Downs of Mary Anning’s life

Florence Nightingale Lesson and sample planner

Assessment for learning in Primary history

Long term planning for history at Key Stage 1

Thinking skills in history at Key Stage 1

Curriculum models for KS1 history

What do we remember on Poppy Day / Remembrance Day?

Question 1

Smart Task: Key Stage 1

Key Stage 1 assessment in history

KQ5 Smart task Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Who said it? / Who am I?

Useful links

Recent Posts

Outstanding Lessons: Key Stage 1

Using artefacts to help children’s historical understanding at Key Stage 1

OFSTED looking for clear progression models in history

Final KS1 lesson on Scott of the Antarctic nearly ready

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