Please note: these free resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum. For more recent resources see:  Local significant individuals Scheme of work: Local history - the story of our high street Scheme of work: Local history - transport Using a house for your local history study Lessons available on this site...

The Nuffield Primary History Project's development work in schools has taken the form of action research. Action research is a way of improving your teaching.Action research involves repeated cycles taking the form:Identify improvement needed Analyse the issues Form teaching plan, drawing on your knowledge and experience, and on others' ideas...

Questioning can be used in assessing childrens historical skills, as this example shows.The children were all in Year 4, and were withdrawn from their mixed Year 3/4 class for this lesson. They had covered several aspects of National Curriculum history, including over the past year the Egyptians and a local...

Britain Since 1930Lessons

Paul Newton's Year 6 class was investigating the Battle of Trafalgar as the introduction to a Victorian study. The sources Paul had chosen were an extract from the diary of Lieutenant Paul Harris Nicholas, of HMS Belleisle, and the famous painting showing the death of Admiral Nelson on the quarterdeck...

History co-ordinator Sharon Amess helped a student teacher in the Year 6 class with the Britain since 1930 unit. They decided to introduce the topic with a timeline, followed by group research into elements of British life since 1930, decade by decade.Timescales discussionPlacing photographs along a timeline helped the children...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Lynn Cowell's Year 2 class had been doing a topic on a famous person from the past: Christopher Columbus. It began with a story and picture sequencing, followed by some research into the life of Columbus. Lynn had invited Ray Verrier...

This exemplar outlines a lesson John Fines taught to a class of Year 3 children. He was visiting them for the first time to do some drama work. The children already knew a great deal about the Ancient Egyptians and were also used to learning through drama. John writes:After a...

Please note: this lesson was produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Good for SeptemberThe children are in a mixed Year 1/2 class of 27. We did the activity in September because half the class were new and would know very little about...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. Download the attached lessons below. Cross-curricular lessons in History, Science, and Design & Technology: the story of Icarus and his flight to the Sun (is this possible?), the story of the Montgolfier brothers and their...

Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum. All history lessons have literacy links. The following lessons on this website have particularly strong links with literacy and the Literacy Hour. Urban spaces near you - cross-curricular work history, literacy, art & design, and science The Aztec experience persuasion genre: producing...

Please note: these resources pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated History Mysteries at KS1 and KS2 The lessons centred round a mystery, the theft of a cake in an imaginary land where soft toys or characters from children's nursery rhymes live - Nursery...

This was a half-term cross-curricular topic with a mixed Year 1/2 class. It focused on forces in science, storytelling in English, and objects and pictures in history. The children in the class had a wide range of abilities, with a large number having very poor expressive language. Therefore many of...

Overall key question: Who were the Vikings? Lesson 1 Key question: What can a case study tell us about the Vikings? Content Building on prior knowledge - what the children knew and what they wanted to know.Digging up a burial mound on the Isle of Man, and discovering many aspects...

Using key questionsThe Romans in Britain was a lesson introducing Roman Britain to a Year 5 class.We started with the key question: 'What was Roman Britain like?' We had prepared group sets of pictures of aspects of Roman Britain. The images showed a range of scenes, e.g. cooking in a...

The Year 5 class was soon to visit a local museum where a Victorian parade of shops is recreated. We decided to use the 1857 trade directory for our town, Crediton in Devon, to bring its main shopping street to life before the visit. Trade directories, together with census returns...

Please note: these resources were produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum.  A series of lessons, exemplars and guides to help you teach your students about the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings.

Please note: these lessons were produced as part of the Nuffield Primary History project (1991-2009) and pre-date the 2014 National Curriculum. This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers...

Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. Setting the scene: what is an explorer? This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject...