Outstanding History Lessons and smart tasks at KS2
This section comprises two parts: the main one is the series of outstanding, fully-resourced and described, lessons graded 1 by an OFSTED history inspector when they were grading individual lessons.
You are given the learning objectives and every activity in sequence all with accompanying PowerPoint presentations and PDF files. The other lesson activities, from parts of lessons, are called smart tasks, exemplifying features of outstanding lessons and, again, all fully resourced.
Ancient Greece – KQ5 Part 1 – What can we tell about the Ancient Greeks from a study of their Olympics?
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…
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Ancient Greece – KQ5 Part 2 – What can we tell about the Ancient Greeks from their interest in the theatre?
This key question is divided into two distinct parts, starting with Part 1 – the Olympics. This has its own outstanding fully-resourced series of tasks which can be found on…
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Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 1 – Under the Cloth: sorting the muddled collection. Is it all Greek to you?
Step 1 To introduce the notion of the Greeks having a major influence on our lives today use the activity called Under the cloth. Simply place copies of the pictures…
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Push or Pull? What were the real reasons why the Saxons invaded? SMART TASK KS2
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…
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Expert advice on local history at KS1 and KS2 by OFSTED lead inspector
Ex-subject lead for history at OFSTED has recently written this very helpful booklet for English Heritage. A great place to start if you are looking for inspiration for your local history…
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Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 2 – Short KS2 task on the Ancient Greek legacy: language
This is a fun activity looking at the contribution the Ancient Greeks have made to our language. Great for literacy. Pupils are given two different stories of 10 year-old children…
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Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 3 – How Great is your Greek?
Pupils have to select a team of 11 Great Greeks. They do this by preparing and then evaluating 14 different presentations about 14 Ancient Greeks as explained on slide 2…
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Ancient Greece – KQ6 Part 4 – What did the Greeks do for us? Evaluating the video
This task puts pupils in the position as evaluators of a BBC film: BBC Bitesize – Watch: What did the ancient Greeks do for us? Instead of taking everything the…
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Using a Victorian census to discover what life was like 100 years ago SMART TASK
There are 4 separate ways of approaching this topic, each becoming increasingly more ambitious. Stage 1 only is featured below. Stages 2 and 4 are suggestions using your own local…
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Are we fair to the Vikings? A question of interpretation. SMART TASK KS2
Pupils are shown a range of stereotypical images of Vikings, using slides 2 and 3. This should be used to build up a set of adjectives that are normally associated…
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Why did the Romans spend so much time building roads? KS2 short task
From Diamond 4 to ‘Roving Mike’ and kids’ wiki. This simple short task gives groups of pupils, 3 per group, a cut-up set of the 6 diamond-shaped cause cards, provided…
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Why did Germany lose the Battle of Britain?
If Britain was only a few days away from defeat in August 1940 how on earth did she win the Battle of Britain a month later? PLEASE NOTE – This…
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Top ten ingredients of a good KS2 post-1066 thematic unit.
Teaching Crime and Punishment as a post-1066 thematic unit at KS2 For a while now, a number of schools have been developing interesting thematic units that span 1,000 years and…
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Ancient Greece: Short task on using Greek pots
What can I do with just one Greek pot in the resource cupboard? Collaborative and creative storyboarding At the core of this activity is the development of pupils’ creative imagination…
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Why on earth did the Mary Rose, pride of the Tudor fleet, sink so quickly under the nose of Henry VIII himself? Home study option SMART TASK
A tightly structured series of activities on the reasons why the Mary Rose mysteriously sank which incorporates: A history mystery using evidence discovered in the last few years Evaluation of…
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If life was so hard in Victorian cities, why did Wilf move his family there?
If life was so hard for families in the towns why did so many leave the countryside and move to the towns in Victorian times? – a history mystery Starting…
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Primary History: Teaching Victorian Britain Key Stage 2
Astonishingly, at a stroke, the Victorians were removed from the KS2 history curriculum where it had reigned supreme for decades. Most primary teachers will not give up this topic without…
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Vikings – KQ5 – What can we learn about Viking settlement from a study of place-name endings?
Viking place name evidence A very active session in which pupils apply their knowledge of Viking place name endings to look for settlement patterns, using maps of Lincolnshire and the…
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Vikings – KQ6 – Raiders or settlers: how should we remember the Vikings?
Differing views of the Vikings Fun concluding lesson in which pupils produce a balanced, illustrated Zig-Zag book to please a Scandinavian publisher, having looked at differing views of the Vikings….
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Early Islamic civilization – KQ6 – Which of the early Islamic achievements has most effect on our lives today?
Key Question 6 consists of 2 Smart Tasks. Following a brief overview of the impact of early Islamic achievements on our world today, pupils work on two discrete tasks. Firstly…
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KS2 Quick Quiz on the Vikings
This exit task is a quick way of working out whether the key messages of your teaching about the Vikings have been understood and is best done towards the end…
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Teaching Life in Britain 1930-1945 at Key Stage 2
Inexplicably axed by Michael Gove from the curriculum, my advice is to carry on teaching this highly successful unit focusing on the Home Front. You can shave time from other…
Read MoreWritten by Neil Thompson
All content on Keystage history is written and quality assured by Neil Thompson, a former history teacher, county history adviser and Ofsted inspector with more than 30 years’ experience in history education.