Welcome to the Key Stage 2 section of Keystage history where you will find masses of advice on how to make history both fun and satisfyingly challenging. You will be helped to design and plan an exciting primary history curriculum linked to the NC 2014 Orders and taking into account the difficult areas of assessment and progression.This is a tricky process at Key Stage 2. It is easy to lose continuity if you are not careful. You will be shown which skills and concepts are best developed in which contexts along with examples of key questions that have proved most effective in deepening learning. You also will be helped to make the most of history’s contribution to the whole curriculum by being shown cutting edge practice in the areas of cross-curricular history planning, literacy, thinking skills and creativity.
The site also offers a unique set of detailed lesson plans and resources for about 120 lessons which have been judged as outstanding by OFSTED. These cover all the major topics linked to an outstanding medium-term planner which expertly hows how to combine the most significant content with the development of conceptual understanding.
You will see below that these resources are constantly being added to , thereby ensuring that you have not only the latest and best advise but also the highest quality learning materials for your pupils.
As you know, the requirement to study Life in Tudor Britain was mysteriously and inexplicably removed from the Key Stage 2 curriculum in 2014. As one of the best-taught and popular of all the history topics that pupils study at junior school,...
This KS2 history enquiry revolves around Henry VIII’s divorce and the break with Rome, one of the best-known stories in English history. At first, Henry, this larger than life figure, seems almost to be a perfect guest on Jerry Springer. He married...
This KS2 smart task places pupils in the role of detectives trying to prove that the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur may actually have been been a fact. First they have to think carefully about what sort of evidence MIGHT have survived. Showing...
This lesson on the Battle of Marathon makes a major contribution to pupils' thinking skills. They are presented with a paradox. How could the David of Athens beat the Goliath of Persia?
Instead of being given a textbook account or a video explanation, pupils...
We thought we would offer you a range of different cameos showing how the history of the Olympics could be imaginatively integrated into your current teaching.
The teaching activities below have all be tried and tested in schools and have been judged outstanding by...
A fun thinking skills activity in which pupils infer from visual clues before moving on to analyse a range of influence cards and evaluate a video before coming up with their own explanation.
As the pupils enter the room they are told that...
Starting a lesson with an apparent contradiction is a good way of engaging pupils interest. This 'history mystery' makes excellent use of pupils' thinking skills, enabling them to make their own meaning using information cards which they use to create different patterns of thought....
This lesson makes extremely good use of a technique called creative tension. Pupils listen, with their eyes closed, to a spoken description which they then have to visualise in their heads. When they open their eyes they discuss what they saw in their mind's...
This lesson is designed for Y5/6 pupils who already have a little knowledge of industrial change but have not yet studied cotton mills. Although the main part of the lesson is devoted to a playlet in which pupils act out real testimony about children’s...
This active, thinking skills lesson asks pupils to consider the likely effect of the coming of the railways on different groups in society before going on to take part in a role play in which villagers have to debate whether they should support or...
The context of this lesson was to explore the highs and lows of Catherine of Aragon as a lead up to the Break with Rome. Pupils had already looked at the personality of Henry through his portraits. They had noticed, using the 'Police line-up'...
This lesson works really well because the tension you build into the waiting room activity gets all the class involved and focused. The more able pupils have a specific, more challenging role to play, working out an explanation that assuages the rage of an...
This is a really fun lesson which shows children what is meant by historical interpretations in an engaging and accessible way. It appeals to both visual and kinaesthetic learners by using the police line-up approach. The use of an interactive timeline always succeeds in...
This activity puts pupils in the role as researchers for a new book on Victorian schools. They have been commissioned to write a book for key Stage 1 pupils. Therefore, it needs to be short and interesting but also accurate. They must show evidence...
There are 4 separate ways of approaching this topic, each becoming increasingly more ambitious. Stage 1 onky is featured below. Stages 2 and 4 are suggestions using your own local resources. There are no resources for these.
Stage 1: Featured here, for younger children needing...
This enquiry falls into five parts:
A selection of four related enquiry tasks which encourage pupils to explore and then evaluate evidence about the life of a climbing boy. The evaluative task is particularly suitable for the gifted and talented working at level 5...
There has been very little published research on the views of KS2 pupils on their history work, other than lots of ranking activities which place history at, or near, the top of the list of most popular subjects. That is both a blessing and...
Given that this site specialises in giving practical support to busy teachers and subject leaders, you may be surprised to find a section on the theory of learning. Well, don't worry it is very short! With so much theory and so many research findings...
This enquiry focuses on helping children to learn about the power and authority of Queen Elizabeth and to appreciate the contrasting lifestyles of rich and poor in late Tudor England. The vehicle for doing this is to cast pupils in role as the household...
This lesson features the lives of 4 different Tudor people as evidenced from a key document that they each have in common, namely an inventory. By studying the nature, value and amount of possessions each person had, pupils can start to draw conclusions about...
