Chronological understanding

History

Primary

Strategies for teaching history at primary level are discussed

Three primary teachers discuss and share their top strategies for bringing history to life when teaching chronology, change and consequence, and historical enquiry to Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 classes. Tracy Anderson, Helen Lavis and Sandra Baines from Powell's C of E Primary School in Cirencester discuss teaching chronology and how timelines are a simple but effective way to explore this with a class. They also suggest getting pupils to draw pictures of themselves at key moments in their lives, to help them understand about sequencing, and change. Another effective way of exploring change with a primary history class is by using props. This enables pupils to compare old and new items, such as clothes pegs through the ages, or modern gas masks and those used in World War II. To develop children's enquiry skills, they suggest creating question and answer boxes which are kept in the classroom. At the beginning of the topic, they discuss what pupils would like to find out about. They then post these questions in the question box. During the course of the topic, other pupils are then encouraged to pick questions to find the answer to and post these in the answer box.

Bringing History to Life

Introducing the difficult topic of chronology

According to the QCA, many children at Key Stage 2 lack an understanding of chronology; a difficulty that often hinders the teaching of history. In this programme, we meet Kate Gooding from Christ Church School in east London. She combines the techniques of active timeline and role play with a visit to the school's local church in an attempt to ground the children's understanding of the past. Organised with the help of Gail Richards, a history specialist from a local school theatre company, this lesson demonstrates some exciting ways to introduce the difficult topic of chronology.

KS1/2 History - Time and Place

How to make the most out of history

The demands on primary teachers to deliver core subjects often leads us to wonder about the most effective ways of incorporating lessons. In this programme, we gather together a group of practitioners and experts to examine how history can be used to help integrate core subjects and skills-based learning. Kate Gooding, a teacher from Christ Church School in east London, is joined by Year 6 teacher Rebecca Marshall and primary AST and humanities co-ordinator Elizabeth Watson. Also in the group are Grant Bage and Hilary Claire from the Historical Association Primary Committee. Together, they watch excerpts from one of Kate's recent history lessons, which combined a local site visit with role play to introduce the notion of chronology. The team then open up to a broader debate on how to make the most of history.

KS1/2 History - What's in it for You?

 A look at activities designed to help learn about chronology 

This programme focuses on a workshop offering newly-developed activities, specifically designed to develop an understanding of chronology in pupils. The activities include a lively time machine game, a revamped version of the time line activity, as well as some maths and literacy quizzes. Leading the workshop is Alan Hodkinson, senior lecturer at the University of Chester who specialises in teaching chronology. Road-testing the activities are a number of primary teachers and headteachers from a range of schools, both inner city and rural. Seeing how pupils get on with the activities may provide some idea of how useful they find them, and how the activities can be tailored to specific classes.

KS2 History - Chronology Workshop

   Chronology activities put into practice in a primary school   

In this programme, teacher Heather Cox and headteacher Helen Schmitz put into practice the activities they learnt about in KS2 History: Chronology Workshop. Heather and Helen agreed that some new activities could be good for their pupils and decided to attend the workshop led by Alan Hodkinson, senior lecturer at the University of Chester, who specialises in teaching chronology. Following on from the workshop they decided to road test some of the newly developed activities, including a lively time machine game, a revamped version of the time line activity and some maths quizzes.

Professional Development for Quality Teaching

Subjects

> Primary History

> Chronological understanding

Bringing History to Life

KS1/2 History - Time and Place

KS1/2 History - What's in it for You?

KS2 History - Chronology Workshop

KS2 History - Teaching Chronology