As one of the most popular and enduring of KS1 history topics, it could be argued that this needs no explanation for teaching it. However, we do need to be crystal clear as to why it is taking up valuable curriculum time. Firstly, it is clearly well-suited to KS1 as the episode is clear-cut, time-limited and has a lot of action and a few key personalities.
As a vehicle for taking pupils back into a different world, it works very well, as the contrasts between then and now are so clear. It also enables pupils to gain experience of using accessible forms of historical evidence to reconstruct the past, as well as being probably the best topic there is for developing pupils’ understanding of cause and consequence. Be careful though not to lose the empathetic element. We must never forget that though the death toll was incredibly low, thousands lost their homes and valued possessions and had to live for years in primitive temporary
tented communities while their houses were re-built.
