Children can be introduced to the idea that educating children has a long history with many changes over time, sometimes with turning points and significant developments. This unit examines some ideas about change, e.g. the pace and nature of change, the impact of change and continuity. It draws upon content from other units to allow some comparison and introduces pupils to a variety of sources that allow them to evaluate these changes over a long period of time.  It is designed to enable pupils to understand broad sweeps of history in a meaningful way.

This can be taught to any age group within key stage 2 but may be easier in upper key stage 2 when children may have a better chronological awareness and have covered more periods and societies. If taught to a younger age, some suggestions for adapting it to pupils of different ages and abilities are included at the end of each of the three enquiries.

This unit is structured around three history enquiries:

1. What do the sources tell us about the way education has changed?
2. How much would you have enjoyed going to schools in the past?
3. Did education help everyone?

Please note: While this unit contains resource suggestions, it is not a fully resourced scheme of work, and the resources it refers to may in some cases only be available to full members of the HA. The majority of the HA schemes of work were produced between 2014-2019 by members of the HA primary committee and its affiliates. These schemes of work are designed to support your planning and should be moulded and adapted to fit the context and needs of your own school.  To view a free sample scheme of work, please refer to our Anglo-Saxons unit. We regularly check the hyperlinks included in the schemes but unfortunately every now and again some links may go out of date. If you spot a broken link, please let us know on enquiries@history.org.uk.