Teaching history at Key stage 1 Archives

Welcome to the teaching history at KS1 section where you will find masses of advice on how to make KS1 history lessons fun and how to help pupils to take their first steps into the fascinating world that is the past. You will be helped to design and plan an exciting primary history curriculum in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum taking into account the difficult areas of assessment and progression in history.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 planning, literacy, thinking skills and creativity.

If it is imaginative ideas for KS1 history lessons you are looking for, then you will definitely want to spend time in the teaching section with its hundred great primary history teaching strategies and in the learning section with its wide range of imaginative approaches and brilliant ideas for products that children will love.As a subject leader, you will find easily accessible advice that is ‘right on the money’. Years of helping hundreds of infant teachers with their history planning, resourcing, and monitoring in history, has enabled me to know exactly what is needed, and which support strategies really work.

The Great Fire – KQ6 – How shall we rebuild London after the Great Fire?

This lesson gives full rein to children’s creative flair, disciplined by evidence. The City of London is offering a prize…

Florence Nightingale – KQ4a – What was Florence Nightingale’s greatest achievement?

Pupils have been drafted in to help with the wording on a statue to Florence Nightingale which had badly worn…

Florence Nightingale – KQ4b – Florence Nightingale’s days are numbered. Brilliant cross-curricular History and Mathematics

Every so often you see an inspiring example of history and numeracy working together seamlessly. Such a lesson was taught…

Florence Nightingale – KQ5 – How do we know so much about Florence Nightingale when she lived so long ago?

This differentiated core activity is Prove it! Working in pairs as detectives with their own find the clue sheets and…

Florence Nightingale – KQ6 – Should Florence Nightingale rather than Mary Seacole have her statue at St.Thomas’ hospital?

NB This lesson overlaps, as you would expect, with a similar lesson on Mary Seacole. It is slightly different in…

Mary Seacole – KQ1 – How can we work out why Mary Seacole is famous?

This session focuses on working out WHY Mary Seacole is commemorated today 200 years after she was born, and looks…

KS1 Medium Term Planner: Louis Braille

The current history curriculum at KS1 asks schools to provide a little more coherence in their choice of significant people…

Mary Seacole – KQ2 – What were the most important events in Mary’s life?

Pupils watch a short film to establish the outlines of the story and then have to sequence a differentiated set…

Louis Braille – KQ1 – Why do you think Louis Braille is remembered today: Smart task

This session comprises two activities. Activity 1 – Pupils try to work out why Braille might be famous from visual…

Mary Seacole – KQ3 – What was Mary’s greatest achievement and how do we know?

The focus here is mainly on the evidence for Mary’s achievement. This is important as she was a more-or-less forgotten…

Louis Braille – KQ2 – What were the most important moments, and who were the most significant people, in Louis Braille’s life?

This session comprises 3 key activities, so it is important to devote sufficient time to it. Please note that activities…

Louis Braille – KQ3 – What motivated Louis? Why did he decide to invent a system of writing for the blind? Smart task

In contrast to the multi-faceted KQ2, these two relatively short activities will not take as long. They focus on Louis’…

Mary Seacole – KQ4 – How did life change for Mary after the Crimean war?

Pupils create a fortunes graph showing the highs and lows of Mary’s life after the Crimea, identify a key turning…

Louis Braille – KQ4 – What changes to people’s lives did Louis make?

Step 1 This is a short activity in which pupils are asked to think of any uses of Braille they…

Louis Braille – KQ5 – What makes Braille so special? Smart task

This very short task is preliminary to the major task that follows in KQ6 which explores how we should commemorate…

Louis Braille – KQ6 – What should go in our Braille museum? Curator’s dilemma

Set the scene When Louis died no national papers covered the story. 100 years later in 1952 his body was…

Mary Seacole – KQ5 – What made Mary so special?

A short session aimed at generating adjectives to capture the special qualities that Mary had and to provide examples of…

Mary Seacole – KQ6 – Why doesn’t everyone agree that Mary deserves her statue at St. Thomas’ hospital?

This lesson places pupils in the role of Mantle of the Expert. A new monument to Mary Seacole was erected…

What the latest biography of Mary Seacole tells us

In Helen Rappaport’s latest book “In Search of Mary Seacole: Making of a cultural icon”, we are told how Mary’s…

Teaching the Gunpowder Plot to Key Stage 1

Ever since the Gunpowder Plot was included in the Programme of Study for Key Stage 1, there have been howls…

Gunpowder Plot – Key Stage 1

If you are teaching about Bonfire night, Guy Fawkes or the Gunpowder Plot you will find the planning advice and…

Guidance for teaching Amy Johnson as a Famous Person in Key Stage 1

This study of a significant individual has been designed to form part of a broader topic on a similar theme…

KS1 History Planning for Going to the Seaside topic

Medium term planning and planner for Going to the Seaside KS1 This history topic has been designed to be taught…

Teaching the Wright Brothers as a Famous Person in Key Stage 1

The Wright brothers offers an exciting opportunity for pupils to explore a topic that should engage their interest, provide plenty…

Wright Brothers – KQ1 – What do you think the Wright brothers did to make them famous?

At the very start of the topic, on the assumption that you haven’t told them what the topic is about!!…

Planning for a cross-curricular topic on Going to the Seaside

This advice with associated downloadable resource below is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to…

Wright Brothers – KQ2 – How did the Wright brothers manage to be the first to launch a man powered flight?

This enquiry comprises a series of three smart tasks: the first is a sequencing task based on storytelling; the second…

Going to the seaside – KQ1 – What was going to the seaside like 100 years ago? Writing a quality postcard home, avoiding the martini syndrome?

If you have ever asked children in Y1/2 to write a postcard home as if it were from Victorian times…

Wright Brothers – KQ3 activity 1 – Why did the Wright brothers succeed where others had failed?

Sarah Duck describes how her class tackled this key question. The task involves children reading small diamond-shaped text cards, to…

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

From mime to movie. SMART TASK This fun activity is carried out by children working on tables of six. Half…

Wright Brothers – KQ3 activity 2 – Spying on the Wright Brothers.

This reconstruction relay – part of KQ3, Why did the Wright Brothers succeed where others had failed – is fantastic…

Going to the seaside – KQ3 – How do we know what holidays were like 100 years ago?

Designing an authentic Edwardian Seaside Poster This KS1 history lesson uses the Mantle of the Expert approach to place pupils…

Wright Brothers – KQ4 – The Wright Brothers first flight. KS1 Prove it!

How can we possibly know about the Wright Brothers first flight when there’s nobody alive now who saw it? This…

Going to the seaside – KQ4 – Do we go on seaside holidays for the same reason people went 100 years ago?

Children discuss the reasons they might have for going on a seaside holiday NOW and then think of the different…

Wright Brothers – KQ4 – one teacher’s alternative approach – Wright brothers: prove to me that it really happened

This lesson was taught by Sarah Duck, Leading Teacher for History, Hampshire LA. She kindly describes for us how the…

Going to the seaside – KQ5a – How have seaside holidays changed over time?

Can you help Grandma sort these seaside holiday photos? This smart task which forms the first half of this KQ5…

Wright Brothers – KQ5 – How did flight change as a result of the Wright Brothers’ work?

This activity goes beyond simple sequencing of images, which pupils first attempted at the start of the topic, to explaining…

Going to the seaside – KQ5b – How have seaside holidays changed? What our grandparents tell us

This lesson finds children producing a questionnaire, collecting data from grandparents, feeding data into a database and then drawing conclusions. …

Wright Brothers – KQ6 – How should the Wright brothers be remembered?

Commemorating the Wright brother’s achievements with words young children can understand Pupils have to create a plaque to commemorate the…

Remembrance Day – When did we start wearing poppies and have we always done so?

More than a century ago, in 1921, paper poppies were first sold to raise money for returned soldiers of the…

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…

Outstanding Lessons: Key Stage 1

If you have ever searched the internet for inspiration for your history sessions you will know how frustrating it can…

Teaching Toys to Key Stage 1

Toys is an obvious topic to select for infants. Not only is it appealing , at least initially, it is…

KS1 Medium term planner: Toys through time (Term 1 or 2 of Y1)

This is one of the earliest topics to be taught at EYFS/KS1 following on from Myself. As we know this…

Toys – KQ1 – What are our toys like today?

Because the topic is aimed at children beginning key stage 1, it is a good idea to spend more time…

Toys – KQ2 – What are other people’s toys like?

This session comprises two very simple tasks: matching objects to the young children who would usually play with them, followed…

Are you teaching the right things about Mary Seacole to your children? 10 things to be sure to teach

Are you teaching the right things about Mary Seacole to your children? 10 things to be sure to teach: 1….

KS1 Medium term planner: The sinking of the Titanic Y2

This topic provides an exciting addition to the usual famous events taught at KS1. Not only is there a clear,…

Titanic – KQ1 – Launching the Titanic enquiry, drawing on pupils’ prior knowledge

What do we already know about the Titanic and what can we work out from a picture? This lesson’s activities…

Teaching Scott of the Antarctic to Key Stage 1

Those of you who are thinking that this choice of famous person seems to presage a return to an Our Island…

Teaching history at Key stage 1

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