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.

Planner for teaching early Islamic civilization at KS2

For many schools this is new topic and one to be taught with particular sensitivity in the 21st century. Try…

Roman Britain – KQ2 part 2 – Boudicca’s rebellion: from sequencing to living graph

This KS2 lesson on Roman Britain uses the idea of a living graph to see the ups and downs of…

Making a human living graph in the playground to show the highs and lows of Boudicca's revolt

Roman Britain – KQ2 part 2 additional information – Boudica’s rebellion: from sequencing to living graph

The focus on the dramatic story of Boudica is a good opportunity to help pupils to understand why things happen…

Roman Britain – KQ2 part 2 additional information – Making sure you are teaching Boudica in the right way.

Let’s start with the name. Boudica is the correct spelling, not Boudicea. Boudica means ‘victory’. Her chariots were light, springy,…

Roman Britain – KQ2 part 3 – What image do we have of Boudica today?

Key Stage 2 pupils find Boudica fascinating so this is a good context for exploring the tricky ideas of historical…

Roman Britain – KQ3 – How were the Romans able to keep control over such a vast empire?

This lesson offers considerable variety in terms of learning approaches. Pupils work in tug-of-war teams to represent the differently weighted…

Roman Britain – KQ4 part 1 – Picture this. Creating a group drawing of a Roman town with all key buildings included in the right place

After re-capping the main features of Iron Age settlements, pupils work collaboratively in role as spies trying to find which…

Roman Britain – KQ4 part 2 – Is this another Roman villa?

NB Feb 28 2020. It has been brought to our attention this morning that the link to the video doesn’t work…

Roman Britain – KQ5 – How can we solve the mystery of why this great 400 year empire suddenly came to an end? Can you make the links?

As this is a brief overview question, without time for much independent research, pupils are introduced to a series of…

Roman Britain – KQ6 – What have the Romans ever done for us? Under the cloth

This activity is a good fun way of concluding a study of the Romans. It is called ‘under the cloth’. …

10 things history leaders need to know about the new OFSTED 2019 Framework

10 things you need to know about leading history 1. Show you are teaching history You will have to show…

Medium term planning for history at KS2

KS2 History Planning and Plans All compulsory National Curriculum topics now have full medium-term plans rated as outstanding by OFSTED. …

Top 10 tasks for effective history subject leaders

We all need reminding of what our core purposes are from time to time as we get caught up in…

How effective was Anglo-Saxon justice: what should we do with Edgar?

Pupils work in groups to create a series of short dramatic enactments, each of which illustrates a way of keeping…

How have recent excavations changed our view of the Vikings? Key Question 4

Using the Mantle of the Expert approach, pupils help a confused museum curator to write high quality captions for 11…

Outstanding medium-term planner for Vikings

This KS2 Vikings planner, judged outstanding by an OFSTED history inspector now links to all the fully-resourced outstanding lessons and…

Vikings – KQ1 – What image do we have of the Vikings?

This two part session gives the topic on the Vikings a really active start. Following an introduction to the Vikings…

Vikings – KQ2 – Why have the Vikings gained such a bad reputation?

Having explored the nature of the stereotypical Viking image in the first session, it is now time to examine the…

Vikings – KQ3 – How did the Vikings try to take over the country and how close did they get?

This task encapsulates the struggle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings in an engaging way that really makes pupils think…

Vikings – KQ3 Additional Resource – How did the Vikings try to take over the country and how close did they get?

This article supports KQ3 The first raids early 790s 1. In 789 three ships from Norway landed in Dorset. The…

Just how great was Alfred? Can we beat the BBC website? Anglo-Saxons Key Question 5

In this outstanding lesson, pupils are asked to critique and then improve the BBC children’s website entry for Alfred. But…

Vikings – KQ4 – How have recent excavations changed our view of the Vikings?

Evidence of Viking occupation Using the Mantle of the Expert approach, pupils help a confused museum curator to write high…

Vikings – KQ4 Supporting information – The invisible Vikings?

Key Question 4 address the key issue of evidence to support, or contradict, the idea that the Vikings were simply…

Early Islamic civilization – KQ1 – Why should we study the early Islamic civilizations in school today? SMART TASK

One of the misfortunes of a long history of stereotyping and conflict between Islam and the West is that it…

Early Islamic civilization – KQ2 – How was the Islamic civilization able to spread so far, so quickly?

In this demanding but important overview session pupils have to work out from clues the key reasons for Islam’s growth…

Early Islamic civilization – KQ3 – What can we learn about early Islamic civilization from the way they set up the capital at Baghdad?

Pupils are first asked to design a picture showing what Baghdad would have looked like 1,000 years ago. It is…

Early Islamic civilization – KQ4 – What was so special about Baghdad in its Golden Age?

In it’s Golden Age, ten times more people lived in Baghdad than in London. So what was so special about…

Early Islamic civilization – KQ5 – Just how amazing was daily life for rich people in Islamic cities such as Baghdad and Cordoba?

Pupils in role as rich Saxon visitors to 10C Islamic cities, have to capture the essence of these amazingly sophisticated…

Mayan civilisation – KQ1 – Why do we study the Maya in history at KS2?

Following a brief introduction to locate the Mayan civilization in time and place, stress that we knew very little about…

Mayan civilisation – KQ2 – Reasons why the Maya empire grew – When so much of the land they lived in was mountain and jungle, how did the Maya manage to become so important?

This is a contentious area and historians cannot be sure so it is a quick overview type lesson. Learning objectives…

Mayan civilisation – KQ3 – What was everyday life in Mayan civilization? How different was it for rich and poor?

Having been introduced to the nature of Mayan society with its clear hierarchy, and having seen various models and artists’…

Mayan civilisation – KQ4 – How can we possibly know what was life like for the Mayan people 1,000 years ago? SMART TASK

Introduction This multi-faceted enquiry ranges from scene-setting story telling, and making deductions (using the strategies Zones of Inference and Prove…

Mayan civilisation – KQ5 – Mayan civilization and human sacrifice

KQ5 If the Maya were so civilized why then did they carry out human sacrifice? SMART TASK Please note that…

Mayan civilisation – KQ5 additional information – Ideas to support your teaching of the Maya religious practices

How will you present cultural practices that differ from our own, such as human sacrifice, as practised by the Maya?…

Mayan civilisation – KQ6 – Why did the Mayan empire decline? How can we solve the riddle of why the Mayan empire ended so quickly?

When there are apparently 88 competing theories about the end of the Mayan civilization where do pupils start? Well, having…

Y6 pupils play film detectives to learn about government propaganda SMART TASK

Using a short Ministry of Information film, which last just 8 minutes and can be accessed online here (please note…

Mayan civilisation – KQ6 – Additional information – Why did 90% of Maya ‘disappear’ around 900AD?

This article comes largely from the Historical Association website https://www.history.org.uk/primary/categories/934/module/8747/resource-sharing-hub-key-stage-2/9839/non-european-society Around 900AD, most of the Maya disappeared from the historical…