Teaching history at Key stage 2 (KS2) Archives

keystage 2 students in a lesson Welcome to the section for teaching history at KS2 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 and taking into account the difficult areas of assessment and progression and mindful of the new focus on curriculum within OFSTED’s framework.

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 150 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.

Ancient Egypt – assessment task – The afterlife

Key Elements: ideas, attitudes and beliefs This assessment tasks focuses on a single picture. Pupils are asked how the image…

Ancient Greece – assessment task – Life for women in Ancient Greece

This is a Year 6 task which focuses on Key Element 2a : characteristic features of life for men women…

Anglo-Saxons – assessment task – What were the main changes that took place in Anglo-Saxon England?

Focus: significance and change Using 3 images to help you, what were the most important changes that took place in…

Early Islamic Civilisation – assessment task – Why was life in 10th century Baghdad was so significant.

Using two contrasting illustrations to help them, pupils have to explain why life in 10th century Baghdad was so significant….

Mayan civilisation – assessment task – What can we tell about Mayan society 1,000 years ago?

Focus skill/concept: Understanding characteristic period features and cultural diversity Using 3 images pupils are set the task to explain what…

Roman Britain – assessment task – interpretations of Boudicca

Focus: interpretations Another Year 4 task in which pupils have to compare two unseen illustrations from books about Boudicca. Having…

Roman Britain – assessment task – Why did the Romans invade?

Focus: causation Short written explanation or, for some, the completion of two speech bubbles. What did the Romans / Claudius…

Roman Britain – assessment task – Roman legacy

Assessing pupils’ understanding of the legacy of the Roman Empire on life in Britain This task is designed to elicit…

Stone Age to Iron Age – assessment task – changes from Stone Age to Iron Age

Focus: sequencing This Y3/4 task is highly visual and entails simple sequencing of unseen images followed by reason why changes…

Tudor Britain – assessment task – What can we learn about the way Elizabeth ruled the country from portraits

Focus: evaluation of sources Children work on an unseen portrait after the teacher has read out the caption which explains…

Victorian Britain – assessment task – How do we know this picture shows Victorian Britain?

Pupils are given artist’s impression of a typical Victorian scene which they have never seen before. They have to identify…

Vikings – assessment task – Depictions of the Vikings

Focus: historical interpretation After looking at similarity and difference between two depictions of the Vikings, pupils then offer reasons why…

WW2 – Assessment task – How do we know that this picture shows England at the beginning of the Second World War?

Focus: characteristic features of life for men, women and children Once again based on a very detailed and colourful artists’…

Using story in your history teaching at KS2 – 10 top tips

I’ve just finished watching one of the more powerful of the Historical Association’s podcasts on the subject of story telling…

10 step guide to strengthening your history teaching

1. Ensure all topics are linked and logically sequenced At the planning stage make sure all topics are carefully linked…

Strengths and weaknesses of 10 different approaches to local history at KS1 and 2

1. A general history of the community Advantages Can build a sense of place enhancing pupils’ awareness of how the…

Sequencing your KS2 history topics: are you doing it right?

Is there a right order for sequencing KS2 topics? Let’s start with a reality check. No research exists to show…

Ancient Egypt – end of unit quiz

Congratulations on completing your unit on Ancient Egypt! Now that you’ve explored this incredible ancient civilization, it’s time to put…

What should I be doing?

OFSTED’s recent report ( 2023) highlighted the following 5 key messages about assessment in primary history. Over the next few…

Getting your priorities right at the start of the year – KS2

September is always a good time to think through what you should be doing as history leader now that you’ve…

Early Islamic civilisation knowledge organiser – KS2

You are studying this topic so that you realise that a thousand years ago Baghdad was the largest city in…

Keeping your teaching of Stonehenge up-to-date

Just when you thought you knew all there was to teach about Stonehenge suddenly a major discovery turns much of…

9 highly effective retrieval activities that really help history to stick ..and show real historical understanding too!

To prevent retrieval activities simply resembling a random fact pub quiz consider using the following , which I’m sure many…

8 retrieval tasks that really work in history

This list is by no means exhaustive nor is it linked to just one key stage. You can think of…

Ideas for assemblies on the Olympics: Dorando’s story

At both KS1 and KS2 it would be good to focus on one individual and see the extent to which…

Ancient Egypt – SMART task – Puzzle corner: Mystery of the pyramids in the desert

This thinking skills task has been designed to encourage pupils to work out plausible answers to the puzzling question, one…

The mystery of why the pyramids were built in the desert is finally solved

Many of you teaching Ancient Egypt in depth as part of a broader topic on ancient civilizations will , no…

Teaching Olympic games in 2024

Are you planning to teach about the Olympic games which are coming to Paris in July 2024? If so you…

Closing the circle: making sure you have an exciting, ‘fit for purpose’ learning product in your KS1 and 2 history topics

I have often thought that we don’t always invest as much time in considering the final product of a unit’s…

Britain during the Second World War knowledge organiser – KS2

In this topic you will learn why Britain went to war and was threatened with invasion by Hitler’s Germany during…

Shang dynasty knowledge organiser – KS2

You are studying the Shang dynasty because it was the first Chinese civilization in ancient times and one for which…

History as problem solving

Pupils solve problems when they study mathematics. They solve problems in science lessons. So why not in history? Perhaps it’s…

Shang dynasty – KQ1 – Why do YOU think the Shang dynasty MIGHT be important?

Lively introductory session which creatively gets pupils to find things out for themselves and check their understanding using bells and…

Shang dynasty – KQ2 – How different was the Shang society to other civilizations at the time?

Using the expert/envoy technique to research and disseminate information from dossiers on a range of different aspects of Shang society,…

Shang dynasty – KQ3 – What can we tell about the Shang dynasty from the objects that have survived?

Here the focus is on developing enquiry-led learning which is as much about asking valid historical questions as it is…

Shang dynasty – KQ4 – Why has our understanding of the Shang dynasty changed so much in the last 100 years?

Opening up the tricky concept of interpretations of the past, this session enables pupils to grasp that history is always…

Shang dynasty – KQ5 – What was distinctive about the Shang people’s beliefs?

Having used a fast-paced Information Run activity to acquire the key points about Shang religion pupils are set the task…

Shang dynasty – KQ6 – If the Shang dynasty was so well organised why did come to an end after just 600 years and what makes it so special for people today?

Pupils compare 5 different simple textbook explanations, which they colour code, before building their own explanation, based on what seems…

Teaching history at Key stage 2 (KS2)

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