In a departure from my normal focus on the history and geography curriculum, this post is about my approach to planning a novel study. It is similar to my other recent posts in the way it focuses on links between different areas of the curriculum, and how I prepare the children for reading the book so that it is as meaningful as possible, and hopefully they will remember what they have learnt from it.

This is not a comprehensive account of everything I do when teaching the unit; it focuses on the additional texts and knowledge input I use alongside reading the book to aid children’s understanding. I used these ideas when teaching the unit this year, and felt that the children enjoyed it even more than the previous year, when I hadn’t planned it in such a methodical way because I’d never taught it before.

When I use pre-teaching alongside novels, I’m sometimes worried that it will spoil the surprise when we read the book, but if anything I found that the children were more excited because they recognised how what we were reading related to the input I had given in the lesson before. The pre-teaching heightened the anticipation as the children were making predictions about how the information they were learning would translate into what happened next in the story.

I’ve created a document that provides a chronological summary of the pre-teaching I used, where in the book to use it, and the web links I used. Some of these points were brief paired discussions with feedback to the class, which I recorded on our curriculum concepts board which we add to throughout the year. Some of them were 10 – 15 minute teaching sessions, and some of them were full reading lessons in their own right.

Exactly how you use these ideas will depend on what your class have learnt before reading the book, and what they are going to learn afterwards. Some of the elements I chose to focus on because I knew that we were going to revisit the concept later in the year (we read the book in the second half of the autumn term, and our Christmas RE unit was based on the prophecy of Jesus’ birth in Isaiah, so I put a little extra focus on making sure the children knew what a prophecy was because I knew it would be good preparation for that learning).

Here’s the link to the document. I hope you find it useful.

There has been a fair amount of discussion around whether it is best to take children on educational visits before or after teaching a topic. I’ve been a fan of going towards the end (or at least after teaching some of the content) for several years now. I can trace this back to the first time I taught a topic on Charles Darwin in Year 6 (which I describe in this blog https://mrssteaches.school.blog/2020/02/28/why-you-should-teach-charles-darwins-voyage-on-the-beagle-in-year-6/) and visited Down House. The class had already done a separate topic on the Victorians, and I noticed how much of that knowledge they were able to apply when looking round the house, and how excited they were to actually be in Charles Darwin’s house because they already knew quite a bit about who he was, his life and why his discoveries were so important. However, I have not always been able to explain exactly why I think going on the visit after learning something about a topic is often a good idea.

Then I read the following paragraph from Clare Sealy’s blog (1) , which helped to crystallise my thoughts on the matter:

‘To learn something is to be changed in some way that that lasts beyond the immediate. If we encounter momentary joy or fleeting pleasure along the way, so much the better. But it is the lasting change that makes learning purposeful. Learning enables us to see the world in a new way. Whereas before we only saw trees, now we see elms, oaks and sycamores. Whereas before we only saw rocks, we now see granite, limestone and sandstone.  Whereas before we only saw shopping, we now see profit, loss and externalities.  Whereas once we saw ‘one bad apple’, now we see the historical roots of deeply institutionalised patterns of injustice.’

I identify so strongly with this description; this is why I love teaching. I find those moments when I see or hear something new and recognise a link with a piece of knowledge I already have so exciting, I want to help the children I teach experience that joy in the world around them.

When thinking about this, I remembered a particular moment from the residential trip I took my class on last autumn. For context, I teach in the East End of London, and although some of our children have experience of visiting relatives in rural areas, this is mostly abroad, and they have very little experience of rural England, so our residential is at a rural studies centre in Essex. This is slightly different to visiting a PGL-type activity centre – although children experience outdoor activities such as archery, cycling and orienteering during the week, there is also a lot of outdoor play in the grounds, and there are two walks in the woods and fields. This year was my second time on this trip, so I tried to plan the curriculum leading up to it to make sure the children got as much out of the experience as possible.

The trip took place in November.

In September, I taught the Year 5 science unit on lifecycles of animals and plants. As part of this we revised ways of grouping plant and animals. To prepare children for what they would see on the trip, I included lots of practice of identifying common British woodland plants and animals. I specifically included types of tree that I knew children would see, mosses, lichens and ferns, as well as stinging nettles and dock leaves (which I discovered the previous year it’s really important for children to be able to recognise before they walk in the woods!).

Then I introduced the vocabulary urban and rural through an English unit on setting description, using a variety of texts with contrasting city and country settings. First, we read The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and extracts from the stories of Brambly Hedge. We identified features of the different settings. I explicitly taught children what brambles and hedges were and we focused on some other plants and trees that appear in Brambly Hedge.

Our class novel in this term was Varjak Paw, which includes some good city description. I supplemented this with The Promise (city) and the first chapter of The Hodgeheg (town), as well as extracts from Charlotte’s Web and The Wind In The Willows (country). We analyse the strategies the authors use to create atmosphere through setting description in these stories, and write our own stories with a city setting, but a secondary objective for this unit is to develop children’s vocabulary for urban and rural environments. (2)

In October, I taught a geography unit on urban/rural contrast, including population and land use. After some revision of UK locational knowledge and physical and human features, I introduced the comparison of the East End of London with rural areas in the South East of England using photos of my life growing up and still living in rural parts of Kent. Telling my story of growing up in the country was really powerful for the children, and using the photos helped to build their vocabulary relating to the countryside even further (3). They seem to particularly love my description of how when you’re driving in a country lane, if you get stuck behind a tractor you have to just drive along slowly behind it! This naturally leads into children sharing their own experiences, some of relatives in other parts of England, and some in rural parts of Bangladesh, as well as comparing the lifestyle with their own city homes.

We also included map work, revising plan view maps and comparing maps of the area surrounding out school with the area we would be visiting. We identified the different facilities and population density in each area and thought about the advantages and disadvantages of living in each place (which gave me the opportunity to correct some misconceptions during the discussion).

By the week of the trip, naturally the children were very excited. But in addition to the normal excitement about spending the week with their friends, and the activities, many of the children were really looking forward to seeing all the things we had been learning about in real life. On the coach journey, as well as being asked how much longer, I was repeatedly asked whether we were in a rural area yet until I finally answered yes. Children were excitedly pointing out vegetation and hedges.

On the first day after settling in, the first activity is a walk in the woods. This is the moment that Clare’s blog made me think of. The majority of the walk (apart from the time they were jumping in muddy puddles) was full of discussion of the different plants we came across. Children were constantly asking me whether different plants were dock leaves, whether what they could see on trees was moss or lichen, whether different bushes were brambles, and which trees were oak trees. There was a lot of excitement in particular about the different types of fungus growing in the woods. And this year no one got stung because they could all recognise the stinging nettles!

Most of those children wouldn’t have got nearly as much from that walk in the woods without the pre-teaching of all the different things they would see and the vocabulary they needed to describe it. The joy they got from identifying all these plants they had learnt about at school, in a real context, is an example of what Clare was describing in the paragraph above. If we can structure the curriculum to ensure children feel that joy on every visit, we are creating truly powerful learning experiences by providing them with the knowledge they need to appreciate the experience more fully.

(1) How to speak truthfully about what it means to be human: a user’s handbook.

(2) A note about how I follow up this learning later in the year, to really embed it in children’s long term memories. In the spring term when we learn about migration, we do a unit on the picture book When Jessie Came Across The Sea in English. Jessie moves from an Eastern European village to New York (in the 19^th Century). We compare and contrast the two different settings in the text, and how Jessie’s life changes as a result.

(3) In Tom Sherrington’s The Learning Rainforest Fieldbook (2019), a child from the previous year’s class gave the reason that he liked having me as a teacher that I was really good at explaining what a rural area was like because I lived in one. This is a good example of the privilege of story in our memories – he was interviewed in July, and this moment from the previous October was what stood out to him from the whole year.

This is the next in my series of posts exploring exemplar topics and how they can build on children’s prior knowledge.

As I said in my previous posts, there are many ways for schools to deliver the National Curriculum, so please don’t worry if your school doesn’t teach this topic in the way I’m describing. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your school’s curriculum if you don’t, just giving some examples of how topics can be planned as part of a coherent and well-sequenced curriculum. Also, there are many different ways to approach each topic, dependent on what the children have already learnt and the year group it’s taught in. Just because I haven’t included a particular aspect doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, and those I have chosen to include may not all be relevant for you, depending on your context.

So onto the main purpose of the blog – explaining why I think Italy is a valuable country to study in Lower KS2. Every school that follows the National Curriculum will teach the Romans in KS2 (and in my experience most in Lower KS2 which is why I’ve aimed it at this age group), so giving the children context for this by learning about Italy beforehand seems logical. As all schools will also be teaching Ancient Greece, doing a similar brief introduction to Greece beforehand would be a good opportunity to build on what was learnt about Italy, and develop children’s understanding of the Mediterranean as a region.

Rome has significance as home to the Vatican, the centre of the Roman Catholic church, which is in my opinion powerful knowledge that is often missed from the primary curriculum. The fact that Vatican City is a country in its own right is something children find interesting and which challenges their understanding of what a country is (many children have the misconception that a country is a large area of land).

There are two possible approaches to country studies in KS2:

1. Giving a brief overview of country that links to another part of your curriculum, including the elements described in the following NC objective:
2. locate the world’s countries, using maps to focus on Europe (including the location of Russia) and North and South America, concentrating on their environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, countries, and major cities
3. Selecting a region in the country for more in depth study and comparison with the UK:
4. understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region of the United Kingdom, a region in a European country, and a region within North or South America

I’m going to write as if I were doing the former (because that’s what is in my school’s curriculum) but will then explain what you could add if you want Italy to be the European country you select for the latter.

When you introduce any new place, I highly recommend you refer to Aiden Severs’ comprehensive list of questions to ask (http://www.thatboycanteach.co.uk/search?q=country+questions).

I would start with revision of the seven continents, five oceans, four countries of the UK, their capitals and the surrounding seas. Although these are KS1 objectives, children will need regular reminders in order to embed this knowledge. Checking understanding of continent, country, capital, ocean & sea is important because confusion around this vocabulary can continue throughout KS2 unless definitions are explicitly taught and referred to each time a new concept is visited.

I would then introduce Italy’s location using a globe, a variety of maps, and with children using atlases, teaching the following facts:

• Italy is a country in the south of the continent of Europe (in the northern hemisphere), and that its capital city is Rome. Locate Italy on a map of Europe and a world map.
• Vatican City, the home of the Pope, is within Rome, and that it is a separate country.
• Italy has borders with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.
• Italy is surrounded by three seas: the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Adriatic Sea &  the Ionian Sea (which form parts of the Mediterranean Sea)
• There are many islands that form part of Italy, and that the largest of these are Sardinia and Sicily.
• Locate Italy, Rome, Sardinia, Sicily and the Mediterranean Sea in an atlas and mark them on a map of Italy.

Throughout I’d be comparing to the UK, as there are some interesting similarities and differences, for example the fact that both countries are made up of many islands, but unlike the UK, Italy is part of mainland Europe. This would be a useful opportunity to develop children’s understanding that while the UK consists of two large islands, there are also many smaller ones (over 1000, although only 130 are permanently inhabited; Italy over 450).

Next, I would highlight the main physical features of Italy:

• The Alps is a large mountain range that stretches across Europe, and part of it is in Italy (the Dolomites). The highest peak is Mont Blanc at 4808m.
• The longest river is the River Po, which flows through major cities such as Milan and Turin.
• There are many lakes in the Po Valley, including Lake Como & Lake Garda.
• Rome is situated on the River Tiber about 15 miles from the coast.
• Italy has several volcanoes, including the only active volcanoes on mainland Europe. The three active volcanoes are Mount Etna, Stromboli and Mount Vesuvius.

The amount of detail included would depend on whether children have already learnt about rivers, mountains and volcanoes at this point. If they haven’t, I would simply teach the facts as given above, showing photos and locating them on a map of Italy. If they have already learnt about volcanoes and plate tectonics, I would explain that the reason there is lots of volcanic activity is that Italy is on the boundary of the Eurasian & African plates. If they have already learnt about Pompeii, this knowledge could be revisited, or you may be including it in your Romans unit, in which case you could introduce it at this point. If the children have already learnt about rivers, then this would be a good opportunity to revisit the vocabulary they know in the context of the River Po and/or Tiber.

If you plan to spend more time on this unit, making sure children understand the difference between an ocean, sea, river, lake and pond would be useful. Using aerial photos, Google earth and atlases, children can identify examples of each. This could be particularly important if your school is in an urban area (I recently did some atlas work where I asked children to locate the oceans and seas on which certain countries had coasts. This uncovered the fact that lots of them didn’t know the difference between a sea and a lake – they were unable to identify where the coasts were on the map because they were looking at all bodies of water both surrounding and within the country.)

Naturally following this, I would teach children about the Mediterranean climate – that this type of seasonal weather pattern gets its name from the Mediterranean Sea, because it is mainly found in the countries surrounding it (although there are some regions with Mediterranean climates in all of the continents). Again, the details I would include are very much dependent on the year group and children’s prior learning. If this is their first country study in Year 3, they will need to be introduced to the concept of a climate by reviewing what they learnt about the four seasons and seasonal weather patterns in the UK in KS1, before comparing weather patterns in Italy. However, if they had already learnt about climate zones, I might go into much more detail about the two distinct climates in the northern inland (humid, subtropical) and southern coastal (Mediterranean) areas of Italy, and the features of Mediterranean forests, woodland and scrub.

This would lead to an overview of the animals and plants that are commonly found in Italy (and whether these are found in certain regions due to their climate). Facts to include could be:

• Italy has the highest level of fauna diversity in Europe, as its landscape and climate mean it has many different types of habitat.
• Mammals include the Etruscan shrew (smallest mammal in the world), and lynx, wolves, bears and porcupines.
• Storks and birds of prey migrate to Italy from Africa in spring. Commonly seen insects include the praying mantis, cicada and glow-worm.
• Dolphins and seals can be found near the coasts.
• Common plants are olive and pine trees in shrubland, oak, beech and chestnut trees in the lower mountains, and evergreen trees such as larch, pine and fir in the Alps.

Brief comparison with the UK (maybe a Venn diagram showing which countries in which the different animals and plants are found) and discussion of the reasons for similarities and differences would be useful as, for example, children may not know whether bears can be found in the wild in the UK.

Finally, I would introduce the following human features:

• The population of Italy is 60 million (compared with 66 million for the UK).
• Almost half of these people live in the Po River Valley.
• The River Po is used for industry (factories) and agriculture (farming).
• Major exports are wine, olive oil and a variety of fruits, steel, cement, marble, machinery, clothing, footwear and vehicles.
• There are many different types of farm, including those that grow crops, as well as meat and dairy farms.
• Italy is Europe’s largest producer of rice.
• Italy is one of the best-ranked countries for renewable energy production, and has the fourth best usage of solar energy in the world.
• Tourism is one of the biggest industries in Italy – major landmarks visited by many tourists are the Colosseum and Roman Forum (Rome), the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Grand Canals (Venice), the ruins of Pompeii (Naples) and the Ponte Vecchio (Florence).
• The lakes in the Po Valley are popular with tourists due to their cool climate and beautiful scenery.

Finishing with the human geography means that you can make links between what children have already learnt about Italy’s climate and landscape, and the river’s importance for industry and agriculture, to explain why so many people live there. Learning about the River Po also provides several worthwhile links to history. There is evidence of habitation as far back as the Stone Age. Many cities appeared in the valley during Roman times. The significance of the river in modern Italy is interesting to compare with the significance of rivers to the earliest ancient civilisations. Fertile land suitable for agriculture being located in the river valley is one reason, but now because of its significance to the Italian economy rather than for providing food to its inhabitants. It will be important to make links to the periods of history children have already studied, as well as examples of agriculture, industry and sources of energy they have already come across.

If you are using Italy as the main European region you study, you could focus on the Po River Valley and learn about it in more detail. In this case, comparison with the UK will be more important, and more time should be spent on comparison at each stage I’ve described above. I would also recommend a shorter introduction to at least one contrasting European country so that children are aware of the variety of climates and biomes in Europe (we do Scandinavia as a precursor to the Vikings).

To conclude, while I suspect many schools have selected Italy for a country study due to the link with the Romans, its particular combination of physical and human features make it a really worthwhile country to learn about in its own right, as there are opportunities to deepen children’s understanding of so many of the KS2 geography objectives.

This is the next in my series of posts about exemplar topics and how they can build on children’s prior knowledge (following on from the post about the Amazon).

As I said in my first post, there are many ways for schools to deliver the National Curriculum, so please don’t worry if your school doesn’t teach this topic in the way I’m describing. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your school’s curriculum if you don’t, just giving some examples of how topics can be planned as part of a coherent and well-sequenced curriculum. Also, there are many different ways to approach each topic, dependent on what the children have already learnt. Just because I haven’t included a particular aspect doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, and those I have chosen to include may not all be relevant for you, depending on your context.

So onto the main purpose of the blog – explaining why I think Charles Darwin’s Voyage on the Beagle is a valuable topic to teach in Year 6 (and might be my favourite out of any topic I’ve planned). I have specified Year 6 for this topic due to the obvious link to evolution and inheritance, but also because it’s a great way to draw together various threads that run through KS2 science, geography and history.

First, I’m going to outline which National Curriculum objectives can be addressed through the topic. I have chosen to group them by subject, but when teaching the topic, where possible I would approach it chronologically by telling the story of Charles Darwin’s life (starting with some history to set the scene, then the geography and science that is relevant to the different places visited on the voyage, finishing with the science and RE relating to Darwin’s later publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’. There are many excellent texts relating to this topic, but the one that I would recommend from personal experience is What Mr Darwin Saw by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom.

Science

• identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution

Darwin’s observations of a variety of species that have successfully adapted to their environment on the Galapagos Islands were the main influence that led to his development of the Theory of Evolution. The most well known and significant of these are the Galapagos finches, 13 different species having evolved from one original colonising finch as they adapted to the different environments on different islands. Other species that Darwin saw that can be used as examples of how animals are adapted to their environments – marine iguanas, Galapagos penguins and Galapagos tortoise. The science of adaptation and evolution could be taught alongside this unit, or you could teach it beforehand and use these species as additional examples, revisiting knowledge when you reach this point in the voyage.

• recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago

Darwin found a variety of unusual fossils in different locations on the coast of South America and the Falkland Islands. An example that showed him how living things had changed over time was the fossilised glyptodont he found (a large animal similar to the armadillo) – he noticed that this was similar to the smaller mammals (armadillos) that he saw living in Argentina.

In 1835 in Chile, Darwin found fossilised trees and sea creatures high up in the Andes. This caused him to reflect on the length of time over which living things must have been developing in order to have been alive so long ago.

• identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments (working scientifically)

Learning about the findings described above, and how they influenced Darwin’s thinking, is an excellent example of how scientists use evidence to support their findings. It is also an example of how scientific ideas change over time (see non-statutory notes in NC). How Darwin developed his theory, and the controversy it caused when published, could be compared with Galileo’s finding that the planets orbit the sun. This would be a good opportunity to revisit concepts introduced in Year 5 when children learn about Earth and Space.

• recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things

Children could learn about the policies that are in place to protect the natural environment on the Galapagos Islands. This would be a useful opportunity to build on what children learnt in Year 4 about how changes in habitats can affect animals.

Geography

• Physical geography – mountain formation

Exploring the reasons why Darwin discovered fossils high up in the Andes is a good opportunity for children to apply what they have previously learnt about how mountains are formed.

• Physical geography – volcanoes and earthquakes

The Cape Verde and the Galapagos Islands are both volcanic archipelagos, so children could use their knowledge of how volcanoes occur when learning about how the islands were formed. It would be an interesting opportunity for children to compare similar landforms in different continents. Darwin also experienced both an earthquake and a volcanic eruption and its aftermath in Chile in 1835, so these could be compared with the examples children have already learnt during the unit on volcanoes and earthquakes.

• identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones (including day and night)

In the 18^th Century, the government had offered rewards for anyone who could solve the ‘Longitude Problem’. It was far more difficult to determine longitude than latitude, and this caused many navigation problems for sailors. Ships were wrecked because they could not determine their exact position, and voyages took longer than expected which caused problems with lack of supplies and illness of the crew. John Harrison invented the chronometer, which helped with determining longitude because it could maintain accurate timekeeping while at sea over long periods, and they were becoming commonplace by the time the Beagle sailed in 1831. Because the main purpose of the voyage was to accurately chart the coast of South America, the Beagle had a total of 22 chronometers on board. The voyage took place before the Prime Meridian was established in 1851 (and it did not become the common reference meridian worldwide until 1884).

Learning about the chronology of navigation and the identification of lines of longitude would be an interesting way for children to deepen their knowledge of lines of latitude and longitude, and understand why they are important. Additionally, children could identify the locations of the different places Darwin visited using latitude and longitude, describing them in comparison with the Equator and the Tropics, and identifying their time zones.

• understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region of the United Kingdom, a region in a European country, and a region in North or South America

If a region in South America was previously studied, learning about the locations the Beagle visited would be a good opportunity for children to develop a wider knowledge of the continent. Alternatively, this topic could be taught as part of the study of South America, with more in depth learning about an area such as the Galapagos Islands, or the geography of South America could be contrasted with that of a region in North America that has already been taught.

• Human geography – types of settlement; economic activity including trade links

The Cape Verde islands lack natural resources, so the economy now depends on services. Settlements in the islands originally developed because they were a natural stopping place for ships. This would be an interesting example to contrast with the settlements children have learnt about previously, which were mainly founded by ancient civilisations due to an abundance of natural resources.

History

Although history will probably not be the main focus of this topic, there are lots of opportunities to draw together knowledge from previous units of study. While it is not specified for study in KS1 & 2, I think providing children with a basic understanding of life in the 19^th Century is important for two reasons – it gives a good grounding in preparation for more in depth study at KS3, and there are many classic children’s books set in this period, which children will be better able to access if they have some understanding of the context.

If the lives of Florence Nightingale and/or Mary Seacole form part of your KS1 curriculum, this is an opportunity to anchor them more securely in time, developing understanding of chronology now they have wider knowledge of different time periods. There are many other famous Victorians that children may have come across:

• Scientists such as Charles Macintosh and John McAdam (Year 2 materials), Carl Linnaeus (18^th Century, Y6 classification), Mary Anning (Y3 & Y6 fossils), and Alfred Wallace (Darwin’s contemporary)
• Authors & poets such as Lewis Carroll, AA Milne, William Wordsworth, CS Lewis (born 1898 although his writing was 19^th Century), Frances Hodgson Burnett, Christina Rossetti, Edward Lear and Edith Nesbit
• If you teach a text by Charles Dickens, such as A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist, this topic would complement it particularly well as Darwin’s life would provide a contrast with the lives of Dickens’ characters
• Composers (such as Strauss or Elgar) and artists (too many possibilities to mention) that they have studied as part of the curriculum in those subjects

Children may also have learnt about events, people or places from the 19^th Century as part of the local study in KS1 and/or KS2, and as part of the aspect or theme that extends chronological knowledge beyond 1066. For example, when working in a school near to Charles Dickens’ home, our local study was focused on changes in the local area during Victorian times and the locations that inspired some of his books. Following that unit in Year 5 with the focus on Darwin in Year 6 allowed children to really deepen their knowledge and make links between a variety of different areas of study.

If you have chosen to focus any of your history units on transport, communication or technology, looking at Victorian inventions is a good opportunity to develop chronological understanding. What was the Beagle like in comparison with other ships the children may have learnt about, such as the Titanic, the ancient Greeks or those of 15^th and 16^th Century explorers? How did Darwin communicate with his family while he was on the voyage and what methods of communication were available? Were any other Victorian discoveries controversial at first?

If you are close enough to visit Darwin’s home, Down House (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/) I would highly recommend it, but failing that, there are photographs available which you could use to explore his daily life further. Did he have electric lights? Central heating? My favourite part of the trip was always taking children down the back staircase to see the bells in the servants’ quarters, and helping them to notice the difference in decoration between the family’s part of the house and the servants’.

Finally, if your history curriculum includes explorers (possibly Christopher Columbus in KS1), this could be revisited during the voyage, as both the Cape Verde and Galapagos Islands were uninhabited before their discovery by Spanish and Portuguese explorers.

In the previous two parts of this series of posts, I described how I found myself thinking about the best way to develop as many prototypes as possible. Is it by placing linked topics together in the same term, or is there a different way of planning that would expose children to lots of examples over time? In this third and final part, I’m going to explore some possibilities I’ve been wondering about. If you’ve tried something similar, or have a different way of organising your curriculum, please get in touch as I’d be really interested to hear about it.

A good start would be to roll out the strategies I suggested for class teachers in my previous post, across the school:

• Ten minute pre-reading activities

Identify approximately five key concepts for each year group across the school and where they appear in the topics planned for that year. Select picture books/poems/short stories that will provide children with prototypes to add to their schema for each key word.

Advantages of co-ordinating these decisions as a whole school/key stage/phase (depending on size of school) are:

• You can make sure that concepts become progressively more challenging and that they aren’t repeated (unless through a deliberate choice to revisit).
• A methodical approach to selecting picture books to be shared means that everyone will be aware which books are being used in each year group and why. Deliberate choices can be made that will help prepare children for their learning in future year groups. For example, reading picture books about families fleeing from war, such as The Journey, when learning about migration, can help prepare them for learning about evacuation during WWII the following year.*
• Pre-reading texts being deliberately chosen collaboratively by teachers means that they are able to use their knowledge to refer children to previous texts that are relevant to their current topics.
• Copies of picture books that were read as a class in previous years could be made available in classrooms in later year groups. Re-reading the same texts when they are older could help children develop a deeper understanding.

• Cross-curricular links

Using the same set of key concepts I describe above, identify all the points at which each one would arise during the year. Which topic is each concept most significant to? Consider this when sequencing units across the year – rather than placing all those with similar themes together in the same term, could they be spread across the year so that children are exposed to them on multiple occasions throughout the year?

Advantages of co-ordinating these decisions as a whole school/key stage/phase (depending on size of school) are:

• If teachers are aware of the concepts that are explored in other year groups, they will be able to take advantage of opportunities to highlight examples to their classes in preparation for subsequent year groups, or to revisit and check understanding from previous ones.
• Progression between year groups, as well as within year groups, can be planned for, making vertical, horizontal and diagonal links explicit (as Clare Sealy describes here https://primarytimery.com/2017/10/28/the-3d-curriculum-that-promotes-remembering/ ).
• When teachers discuss what is being taught across the school as a team, small details about the content and how it is delivered will be shared that would not otherwise be obvious from the school’s planning. Having an in-depth knowledge of the topics that are taught across the school, how they link together, and the reasons for these decisions, means that teachers are more able to build on their class’s prior knowledge and really deepen their learning.

• Links to class texts

When you select class texts, keep an eye out for links to any concepts that appear elsewhere in the curriculum, either in the same year group or in others. Identify opportunities for pre-teaching, so that children are able to use their knowledge from across the curriculum to develop a deeper understanding of the text. As above, I’m not suggesting teaching texts at the same time as units from across the curriculum, just spending a little time highlighting the link to the children at the relevant point.**

• A curriculum links display

In part 2, I advocated teachers displaying key vocabulary from across the curriculum, and recording examples that children meet throughout the year. Regularly discussing children’s understanding of vocabulary and recording the examples they generate is a good way of building on their prior knowledge.

On a whole school level, there are lots of ways that displays could be used to highlight vertical and diagonal links to children. One example is the timelines that schools place either in the playground or in a corridor, that include all of the history topics taught in the school. Another could be displays highlighting what a particular thread looks like in each year group throughout the school. This could be created by subject leaders, with input from class teachers to provide examples of children’s work as they teach the concept. Alternatively, if your school runs themed days or weeks, these could be used to produce work based on the same concept, which can be used to create the display.

For example, farming is a recurring theme in our curriculum. At harvest time, a display could be created to celebrate farming, including photos of Early Years visiting the city farm, Year 1 work about farmers harvesting crops, pictures of items that are farmed in the rainforest, Year 3 work about changes in farming from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, and examples of how crops are different in the Mediterranean due to the difference in climate.

• Regular short input

As I mentioned in part 2, some objectives are better suited to being taught little and often than spending one or two lessons learning about them in more depth. Subject leaders could identify which objectives this applies to in their subject (such as locational knowledge in geography and chronology in history) and introduce these to teachers as part of their CPD. Creating a consistent set of resources to be used across the school would support teachers and children in achieving these objectives.

For example, we have agreed maps that we will use for retrieval practice in each key stage, and there is a cumulative list of countries that appear in each year group’s curriculum. I have also turned this into a powerpoint that can be used as a 5 minute activity to support children in differentiating between continents and countries (which many children seem to struggle with) – all the countries they have come across so far are mixed with the names of the seven continents and children shout either continent or country (or do actions/hold up a whiteboard depending on the class) for each slide.

This final point is not something I have experience of doing myself, but I have thought about it a lot and think it would be worth considering. Building on the final bullet point above, leaders could make decisions about how the curriculum is sequenced on a whole school/whole key stage level. Which objectives would be better addressed through more frequent short exposures, and which ones require more in depth, longer blocks of teaching? Could some objectives be addressed using a combination of the two – several examples in different year groups, with a short block of focused teaching either to introduce a concept, or to draw together the different examples?

Here are some examples of how certain geography and history objectives could be sequenced across KS2. Please note that these are just examples of how the curriculum could be sequenced, and are not the definitive way it must be taught.

• Human geography – the distribution of natural resources including food, minerals and water

Select a country to use as an example in each of Years 3, 4 and 5 (preferably in different continents/climate zones). Children learn about human and physical features of each country, including their natural resources and the impact they have eg. roughly 25% of Italians live in the Po River valley, which produces 35% of national agricultural output and is key to the Italian economy. In Year 6, plan a short sequence of lessons where the previous examples are compared and contrasted with a final one and with the UK.

• Physical geography – climate zones and biomes

After a brief introduction to the concept of climate zones in Year 3 (building on knowledge of the Equator, hot and cold areas of the world from KS1), and an overview of the different biomes and their features, these could be divided up to study in more depth in subsequent year groups. Each time a new biome was taught there would be an opportunity for retrieving knowledge of climate zones and biomes from Year 3. There would be lots of opportunities for briefly referring to this knowledge, for example by selecting picture books and class texts set in deserts, polar regions or rainforests.

• History – the achievements of the earliest civilizations; an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared

Children should learn about Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, and one of Ancient Egypt, Sumer, China or the Indus Valley in addition to this overview study. If the overview followed one or two of these depth studies, children would already have some examples of ancient civilisations which they could relate to their new learning. If the overview was then followed by short reading activities about civilisations children had not studied in depth, as well as the remaining depth studies, they should have a really thorough knowledge they could use to make links between these periods of history. (I intend to write in more depth about this topic soon.)

*I’m not advocating every book teachers read to their classes being dictated, but suggesting that pre-selecting a certain proportion can provide a more coherent experience for children, with opportunities to expand children’s vocabulary being capitalized on.

**Yes, this is almost exactly the same paragraph I used in part 2 because I couldn’t see any need to change it, but didn’t want to leave it out either. See part 2 for an example of how this strategy could be used.

As I said in Part 1, these posts are a record of my reflections during and after a workshop led by Christine Counsell on shaping the primary curriculum. Part of this workshop involved a summary of the research on prototypes by Eleanor Rosch. Rosch found that the more prototypes we have for a particular word, the better we read because the faster we can select the correct prototype for the context. As a result, it is vital that we support children to develop as many prototypes as possible in order for them to be competent readers who can access texts on a wide variety of topics.

I found myself thinking a lot about the best way to develop as many prototypes as possible.

Is it by studying everything about a topic in one block within at most a six week period? Even if we follow up on that say 2 or 3 times in future years, is that enough?

What if we planned to expose children to lots of examples throughout the key stage, teaching the in depth content in smaller sections where possible?

Considering the research on the benefits of retrieval practice, would this also help children to remember more of the material in the long term?

In this post, I’m going to outline some strategies for increasing the number of exposures children receive to key concepts. Having started to write this, I’ve thought of lots more strategies as I went along, so I’m going to split the strategies across two posts, one for class teachers below, and a third and final part for subject leaders and senior leaders who are making curriculum decisions.

Strategies for class teachers

• Ten minute pre-reading activities

Identify the most important concepts and vocabulary children must understand by the end of the year (only up to 5 otherwise it will be too much, and ideally high yield words that are relevant to several different areas of the curriculum). Select a few picture books, poems or short stories which the concept or word is a central part of to share with the class. Spread them out across the weeks or months before teaching the relevant topic so that children experience several exposures to the word in different contexts before they need to use it in new learning.

For example, a big topic in my year group is Migration. At the beginning of the year, I found several picture books on the topic of animal migration, which included examples of a wide variety of animals that migrate for different reasons. We read these in story times spread across the autumn term, so that before starting the main block in the spring term, children had a good understanding of what the term meant in a familiar context. For each book we had a brief discussion about the reasons why the animals were migrating to prepare children for later learning about the reasons why people migrate.

• Cross-curricular links

Look at your overview for the year (for all subjects not just history and geography) and identify links. By this I mean thinking in a little more detail about the content you will be teaching in each unit and looking for common themes that can be exploited. This doesn’t mean that you need to teach all of the linked units in the same term – in fact it could be more effective for them to be spread throughout the year so that children are continually being reminded of their prior learning, and adding extra examples from a different context.

For example, one of my RE units is on Passover. At the start of the year, when I was looking at the plan for the year, I identified an opportunity to prepare children for their learning on migration through this unit (to my great excitement!). Some of the key words we learn during the migration unit are persecution and flee. I saw the opportunity to link this with the exodus from Egypt. Additionally, we learnt that the reason the Israelites initially migrated to Egypt was famine. This week we created a list of reasons that people might emigrate, and the first suggestion was famine. I was momentarily stunned until I made the link to Passover, which was our first unit back in September.

Capitalising on these links doesn’t have to involve anything elaborate or time-consuming. It simply involves placing slightly more emphasis on these key words and concepts whenever they arise in the course of a lesson. I point out to children that this is an important word/idea that will be useful later in the year, and make sure they all say the word. If the opportunity arises, we might find the word in a text we’re reading, or recall the definition. Based on the famine example above, this seems to be fairly effective.

• Links to class texts

When you read each class text prior to introducing it to the class, keep an eye out for links to any concepts that appear elsewhere in the curriculum, either in your own year group or in others. Identify opportunities for pre-teaching, so that children are able to use their knowledge from across the curriculum to develop a deeper understanding of the text. As above, I’m not suggesting teaching texts at the same time as units from across the curriculum, just spending a little time highlighting the link to the children at the relevant point.

For example, we read The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe in Autumn 2. I identified a number of opportunities for revisiting and building on prior learning in order to enhance children’s experience of the text. Non-fiction reading about beavers, their homes and how their bodies are adapted to their habitats built on Year 4 work on habitats, and could provide a useful example when the class learn about adaptation in Year 6 science, as well as helping children to better imagine Mr & Mrs Beaver’s house. Revisiting the Easter story and having a discussion around the concepts of sacrifice, resurrection and victory meant that children immediately understood what was happening and saw the links with the Bible when Aslan returned to life, as well as preparing children for our Easter RE by embedding the events of Holy Week. Reading Aesop’s The Lion and the Mouse was a good opportunity to build in a fable, which will prepare children for learning about the impact of the ancient Greeks in the summer term, revisited their knowledge of features of a fable from Year 3, and deepened understanding of the scene where Aslan is on the Stone Table.

• A curriculum links display

For some time, I have printed and displayed key words for each new topic. This year, instead of taking them down and replacing them when I started a new topic, I have left them on the board. I have recorded examples we discussed during lessons around the word cards, and moved the cards around so that linked concepts are together. This helps children see how we are building our understanding of each new word we come across throughout the year.

• Regular short input

Some objectives are better suited to being taught little and often than spending one or two lessons learning about them in more depth.

For example, developing children’s locational knowledge in geography is an ongoing process throughout the whole of each key stage. Having a list of questions and vocabulary which is revisited every time we come across a new country provides children with far more prototypes than teaching one or two full lessons each year. I’m going to include the link to Aiden Severs’ (@thatboycanteach) comprehensive list of questions to ask about places, in case you haven’t already come across it. http://www.thatboycanteach.co.uk/2019/06/geography-key-questions-place-national-curriculum.html Knowing which geographical concepts are particularly relevant to the curriculum in your year group can really enrich children’s vocabulary. For example, the concept of borders and thresholds comes up often in foundation subjects and class texts, so when we find new countries on a map or atlas, I always ask children how many countries it shares a border with and we name them.

In history, regular activities to develop children’s understanding of chronology help to fully embed this concept. Every time we read a new poem, listen to a piece of music, read a book that is set or was published in the past, or learn about a new person or event, I ask the children to place it in context of the other people and events they have already studied. I now have children who remember that William Wordsworth published Daffodils in 1807, know that this was before Queen Victoria took the throne but after the Great Fire of London, and are able to explain what was happening in our school’s local area at that time.

These regular activities are also useful for identifying misconceptions or gaps in knowledge, which can be filled at the next opportunity. For example, when they were ordering a set of events they had already learnt about before starting new learning in history, I identified that the children were confused about the terms BCE and AD, and was able to address this.

Implementing the above strategies does not need to be elaborate or time-consuming. Most of them can be done in any spare slots of 5 – 15 minutes, planned in as lesson starters  or form a brief part of another lesson. However, they provide high returns in terms of children’s knowledge, vocabulary development, and confidence as they are increasingly able to make links between their learning in different subjects.

I’m taking a break from my series of posts about specific topics because I was lucky enough to attend a workshop lead by Christine Counsell on Shaping the Primary Curriculum recently. It caused me to think more generally about the process of curriculum design, so I’ve written this two part blog to capture my thoughts on that. I have more ideas for topic-specific posts which I’ll return to writing soon.

When primary schools are mapping out their curriculum for history or geography, the process tends to work something like this: the National Curriculum bullet points are divided up, and each one is allocated to a year group and a term. So for example in KS2 history, teachers would allocate a term for changes from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, then another for the Roman Empire, and so on throughout the bullet points. In KS1 geography, there would be a block for identifying continents and oceans, another for the four countries and capital cities of the UK, another for a small area of a contrasting non-European country, and so on. Sound familiar? This is the way it has worked in every school I’ve worked in. But is it the best way of developing a challenging and coherent curriculum?

When the National Curriculum is cut up and shared out between year groups, one of the dangers is that some of the details specified in the programmes of study are lost. This is particularly relevant to the history curriculum, where each bullet point has non-statutory examples. It’s easy to fall into the trap of selecting one of the examples for each bullet point and thinking that we have everything covered. This is understandable considering the time pressures teachers are under, but it can lead to a lack of challenge in the curriculum.

If you teach children about the lives of Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong in KS1, have they compared aspects of life in different periods? Possibly. But I think it’s likely that when ‘Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong’ is allocated to Year 2 Autumn 1, the fact that their lives should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods may be lost, so although children may have learnt a lot about their achievements, they have missed the opportunity to identify similarities and differences which is key to their progression in history.

In KS2, if you teach a topic on Iron Age hill forts, have your children learnt about changes from the Stone Age to the Iron Age? If you teach a topic on the Roman invasion and resistance by Boudica, have your children learnt about the impact of the Roman Empire on Britain? If you teach a topic on the Ancient Egyptians, have your children also learnt about when and where the first ancient civilisations appeared around the world?

It’s worth checking that what is being taught in each of your topics achieves the purpose set out in the National Curriculum for that area of study. Are they aware of these details, or are they just teaching some facts about Christopher Columbus or Ancient Egypt? Where topics involve comparison or an overview of different civilisations or changes over time, is this being planned for and implemented?

Another potential problem, which is more relevant to the geography curriculum, is that every objective is taught through one 2 – 3 week block, or one lesson a week over a six week term, when that may not be the most effective way to ensure that children achieve some of those objectives. For example, if KS1 children learn about the continents and oceans of the world over one term, possibly learning some facts about each continent one at a time, but then move onto a different topic without revisiting this, how likely are they to be able to name the seven continents and five oceans, and locate them on a world map, by the end of the key stage? Will they continue to be able to do this in KS2? Is mentioning the names of the continents in later topics enough to make sure they can? Or would spending one lesson introducing the location of continents and oceans on maps and globes, followed by regularly spending ten minutes on whole class retrieval activities throughout the key stage and into Year 3, be a better way of ensuring that this knowledge is properly embedded? I explain which objectives I think would be better disaggregated like this in my KS1 and KS2 geography curriculum planning blogs.

One of the main reasons for the issues described above, is that in the rush to allocate topics, we skip over key parts of the National Curriculum documents and jump straight to the bullet points. Preceding these are the purpose of study and aims of the subject as a whole, and a summary of what the subject looks like at each key stage. These give us the big picture of what children must achieve by the end of the key stage, which all the objectives specified in the bullet points feed into. It’s vital that all teachers are aware of these, as they should be guiding the decisions they make about all the planning they do for that subject. If a school’s overview of history and geography looks something like this*:

	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3	Term 4	Term 5	Term 6
Year 1	Our local area	Toys	Weather	The first aeroplane flight	Maps and compass directions	Local history
Year 2	The Great Fire of London	India	Florence Nightingale	The United Kingdom	Christopher Columbus	Continents and oceans
Year 3	Our local area	Stone Age to Iron Age	The United Kingdom	Local history	Italy	The Romans
Year 4	Rivers & the water cycle	The Anglo Saxons	Climate zones & biomes	The Vikings	The United Kingdom	Ancient Egypt
Year 5	Types of settlement & land use	Ancient Greece	The United Kingdom	Local history	Mayans	The Amazon
Year 6	Mountains, volcanoes & earthquakes	Crime & punishment	Natural resources	Energy	World War II

Is it clear enough to the teachers how the individual topics they are allocated contribute to children achieving the aims described in these summaries? Or does this leave the quality of planning and level of coherence between the topics too much to chance? However well planned and delivered the units are, if each teacher simply plans six lessons on each topic heading for their year group from a grid like this, will children have achieved those aims? Even if we plan in links between topics, and revisiting of prior knowledge, I wonder if it is possible to achieve them by focusing on each unit for one fixed period of time. Or is planning in this way creating a barrier to curriculum coherence?

In Part 2 I’ll explain my thoughts on alternative ways to approach the process.

*This is an example created by me without reference to any specific schools. Any similarity to an existing overview is coincidental, and this isn’t intended to be a criticism of overviews that look like this, just some suggestions about how to supplement them in order to ensure the most thorough curriculum for the children.

This is the first in a new series of blogs on developing the wider curriculum. I have selected several topics that I believe there are excellent reasons for including in the curriculum for particular year groups or phases, and will outline the National Curriculum objectives that can be taught through each topic and how it can be used to build on children’s prior knowledge. For schools who teach cross-curricular topics, I will also suggest some meaningful links to other subjects.

Before I start, I’d like to say that there are many ways for schools to deliver the National Curriculum, so please don’t worry if your school doesn’t teach these topics in the way I’m describing. I’m definitely not saying there’s anything wrong with your school’s curriculum if you don’t, just giving some examples of how topics can be planned as part of a coherent and well-sequenced curriculum. Also, there are many different ways to approach each topic, dependent on what the children have already learnt. Just because I haven’t included a particular aspect doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, and those I have chosen to include may not all be relevant for you, depending on your context.

So onto the main purpose of the blog – explaining why I think the Amazon is a valuable topic to teach in UKS2.

First I’m going to outline which National Curriculum objectives can be addressed through the topic. They are mainly from the geography curriculum, but there are lots of opportunities for science within this topic too.

Place and locational knowledge

Many schools will have selected the Amazon as the region within North or South America they use to cover the place knowledge objective:

• understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region of the United Kingdom, a region in a European country, and a region within North or South America

This implies an element of comparison with the geography of the UK; for effective comparison it’s important to compare similar places. For example, comparing the Amazon rainforest with a temperate forest in the UK, or comparing a city such as Manaus (capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonia) with a city in the UK.

It’s worth noting that this objective specifies the study of both human and physical geography, so it’s important to know which specific aspects of each you intend to include. The characteristics included in the National Curriculum are:

• physical geography: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle
• human geography: types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water

Additionally, there’s an opportunity to focus on the countries in South America, particularly as there are nine different countries within the Amazon basin. A quick activity labelling countries and capitals on a map of South America could be done regularly throughout the unit to help children remember them in the long term.

• locate the world’s countries, using maps to focus on Europe (including the location of Russia) and North and South America, concentrating on their environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, countries, and major cities

Physical geography

Clearly one of the key elements of the topic is learning about the features of the tropical climate zone, the tropical rainforest biome and the Amazon rainforest as a vegetation belt. If children have not already studied climate zones and biomes, it will be important to start with an overview of these before focusing specifically on the Amazon rainforest. Since lines of latitude are a key factor in determing a region’s climate, the following objective should also be taught when learning about climate zones:

• identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones (including day and night)

If your children have already learnt about lines of latitude and longitude, this topic is a good opportunity to consolidate that knowledge. It also builds on knowledge of hot and cold areas of the world learnt in KS1.

A good opportunity for including fieldwork would be to look at the weather patterns and soil types in the Amazon rainforest, and compare these with those in the local area. Types of plant, soil and weather patterns are key to classifying vegetation belts (really useful article on this here https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/vegetation-region/ ), so these could be used for comparison with a local forest as well. This would be a good opportunity to consolidate children’s learning about seasonal and daily weather patterns and physical geography (soil, vegetation, weather) from KS1, as well as soils in Year 3 science.

As children will have already learnt about the water cycle in Year 4, they should build on this knowledge by learning about how rainforests help maintain the water cycle, and how the warm temperatures, leading to faster evaporation of water, contribute to the high levels of rainfall.

Finally, there’s an opportunity to build on children’s prior learning about rivers (assuming this has been taught in Lower KS2) by learning some key facts about the River Amazon, and identifying its features on maps and aerial photographs. Since the source of the Amazon is in the Andes, learning about this mountain range would be a useful additional example either to consolidate knowledge of mountains, or to prepare children for learning about mountains later in the key stage. Both the River Amazon and the Andes could be compared with previously studied examples of rivers and mountain ranges.

Human Geography

All of the aspects of human geography specified in the National Curriculum would be addressed by teaching children about the variety of threats to the Amazon rainforest, the reasons for these threats and the impact they have on the area. These include cattle and soy farming (economic activity), dams created to generate hydropower (energy), gold mining, oil exploration, logging and overharvesting of fish (distribution of natural resources and economic activity). I highly recommend taking a look at the WWF’s overview of the threats to the Amazon for a comprehensive explanation of these issues. https://www.worldwildlife.org/places/amazon Deforestation could also affect water supply in Brazilian cities, and possibly further afield. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather/ All of these issues contribute to debates about how land should be used in the Amazon (land use).

Exploring the effects of deforestation and other human activity which is having a negative impact on the rainforest provides an opportunity for children to understand how physical and human features are interconnected – one of the aims of the geography National Curriculum (see the purpose of study and aims section at the beginning of the document).

Additionally, learning about the lives of indigenous tribes in the Amazon provides an opportunity for children to compare different types of settlement, as well as broadening their understanding of other cultures.

The reason that I specifically state that this topic should be taught in Upper KS2, is partly that it builds on what children will have learnt in Lower KS2 about rivers and the water cycle (and potentially climate zones and biomes). Also, in Upper KS2 children will have come across more examples of settlements, industry, trade and use of natural resources, so they will be more able to work with these concepts in order to fully understand the environmental issues involved in learning about threats to the rainforest.

Links to science

In Year 4, children learn about how environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things. If this is initially taught using local examples, learning about the effects of the various threats to the rainforest on the plants and animals that live there would be a useful opportunity to consolidate their learning on this subject. This also builds on KS1 science about how habitats provide for the basic needs of different animals and plants, and how they depend on each other.

Depending on whether the Amazon topic is taught before or after Year 6 science on evolution and inheritance, it could be used either as a useful opportunity to prepare children for learning about how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment or a way of consolidating their learning with additional examples. The differences between the plants and animals found in the different layers of the rainforest is a good example of adaptation to habitat; an interesting extension to this could be learning about cloud forests and how the types of plants change at different altitudes.

There are opportunities for links with a variety of other science objectives, depending on your school’s curriculum and the needs of the children:

• requirements for plant growth (Year 3 objective – children often continue to believe that plants need soil to grow after learning about this in Year 3, so learning about epiphytic rainforest plants is a good way of challenging this misconception)
• food chains, grouping animals and using classification keys (consolidation of Year 4 objectives)
• changes of state – evaporation and condensation (building on learning about this in Year 4 by investigating the role of the water cycle in creating the humid climate in the rainforest)
• plant and animal lifecycles (Year 5)
• classification of plants and animals (Year 6)

Cross-curricular opportunities

Of course there are lots of possible cross-curricular links to the rainforest, but these are the ones that I personally feel are most meaningful and that I have enjoyed teaching myself.

There are so many fantastic texts linked to the rainforest (I’m a big fan of The Great Kapok Tree) that I’m not going to list them all here. However, one that is less well-known, which I have really enjoyed using, is Traditional Stories from the Amazon by Saviour Pirotta. This is a lovely collection of stories with good language and structures that are challenging for UKS2 children to emulate. If your school teaches Greek and/or Roman myths, it would be interesting to compare those they have already read with these myths from a different continent.

Another reason that my personal preference would be for this topic to be placed in Upper KS2 is that it’s an ideal opportunity for discussion writing about the environmental issues involved. Older children should be able to produce some really high quality writing once they have developed a good understanding of these issues.

Similarly there are loads of great art opportunities, but a personal favourite is learning about and responding to the jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau. It’s important to note that Rousseau had never left France or seen a jungle, but I think that provides some interesting opportunities for discussion about whether it’s important for art to be realistic, as well as for comparing his paintings with photographs of the rainforest. Children could use observational drawings of rainforest plants to create their own pieces using stylised versions of these plants. Creating a good piece that consists mainly of foliage requires some quite sophisticated use of colour and line and careful thought about how to approach the composition so that it’s not just a page of green, which is a good challenge for older children.

In contrast to KS1, the majority of the areas of study for KS2 are stated explicitly. However, there are some choices that will need to be made before you can decide on the specific content you will teach in each unit, and place them in a logical sequence.

• Select an ancient civilisation for in depth study (one of Ancient Sumer, the Indus Valley, Ancient Egypt or the Shang Dynasty of Ancient China)
• Select a contrasting non-European society (one of Early Islamic Civilisation c.AD900, Mayan civilisation c. AD 900, Benin West Africa AD 900 – 1300)
• Select an aspect of local history (depth study or study of change over time)
• Select an aspect or theme in British history that extends beyond 1066 (depth study or study of change over time)

If your school is an academy or free school, you have slightly more flexibility, so you could select two examples from one of the lists, omit an objective, select two aspects that are later than 1066, or change the focus of some of the units. If you choose to do this, make sure that you can justify why this is best for your children’s learning.

The following are the factors I would suggest you take into account when making these choices of unit:

World history

• Your pupils’ backgrounds. This could be either to reflect their countries of origin, for example by selecting Early Islamic Civilisation in a school with a significant proportion of Muslim pupils, or to promote diversity by selecting a contrasting culture.
• The range of continents and countries represented when you consider the units you have selected as a whole – ensure you provide your children with knowledge of the most diverse range of cultures possible (considered in conjunction with choices in KS1 & in geography too)
• Links to the geography curriculum. For example, Ancient Egypt would provide opportunities to apply knowledge of rivers and deserts if these had already been studied in geography.
• The opportunities each study would afford for developing understanding of key concepts. Clare has developed a list of these (for history: civilisation, culture, empire, invasion, monarchy, tyranny, rebellion, oppression, democracy, society, community, taxation, source, evidence, chronology. Some of the geography concepts are also relevant to the study of ancient civilisations: trade, settlement and resources). (Developed from the list originally mentioned in this blog https://primarytimery.com/2017/10/28/the-3d-curriculum-that-promotes-remembering/)

British history

• Are any of the useful examples provided in the National Curriculum particularly relevant in your locality?
• What are the most significant aspects of history in your locality? (places, people, events or changes over time)
• Are any of the British pre-1066 areas of study particularly significant in your locality? If so, you may decide either that this justifies an additional depth study, or that you will select a contrasting period from post-1066 for the local study.
• Links to the science curriculum. Did any scientists live in proximity to your school? Were any scientific discoveries made nearby? If so, a study of their life and achievements could be enriching, particularly when combined with a trip to their house or a museum.
• Are there any major gaps in the units of study you have already selected? The aspect of British history extending beyond 1066 is an opportunity to rectify this.
• Links to UK geography. What region of the UK have you selected for the depth study and is there a significant aspect of British history linked to this region?
• Themes that will help children to better understand how daily life has changed over time, and that are relevant to their own lives – houses and homes, school, transport, communication, toys, technology, jobs. Are any of these under-represented in your curriculum?

The introduction to the KS2 National Curriculum for history provides a useful description of what the curriculum should look like as whole, so it’s definitely worth reading closely (even though it’s tempting to go straight to the bullet points to see exactly what you need to teach). This states that teachers should combine overview and depth studies, so it’s important to ensure that you have included both across the key stage. While the examples provided in the National Curriculum are non-statutory, it’s worth considering whether any of these would be suitable for your setting, if only because there are likely to be more resources available for these units.

In order to select a clear focus for each unit, as there are limits on the time available, you could consider the following:

• Use both the list of key concepts and themes referred to above – which ones were significant in the period of time being studied?
• Fully exploit local places of interest
• Look for opportunities to build on knowledge from previous units. For example, if you taught children about farming in Anglo-Saxon Britain, include farming, crops and food in your teaching of Ancient Greek life for comparison.
• Check the wording of each objective carefully:

Unit	Focus specified in NC
Stone Age to Iron Age	Changes in Britain (so must involve an overview of the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age in order to compare)
Romans	Roman Empire AND its impact on Britain
Anglo-Saxons	Settlement in Britain Separate from the next objective
Anglo-Saxon and Viking struggle for England	Invasion Spans the period from approx. 790AD to 1066
Ancient Civilisations	An overview of where and when the first civilisations appeared AND a depth study
Ancient Greece	Greek life AND achievements AND influence on the western world

Sequencing

There are two different ways you could choose to sequence the units you have selected:

1. Chronological sequencing starting with the earliest period of time in Year 3.

Advantages – could help children develop a good understanding of chronology, which is one of the aims specified in the National Curriculum.

Disadvantages – the youngest children study the periods that are furthest in the past, with the least concrete evidence available, making them the most difficult to imagine.

• where there are links with geography and science, sticking rigidly to chronological sequencing in history can result in less than ideal sequencing in other subjects, or useful links being lost (since science units are year group specific).
• Place units of study in particular year groups based on cross-curricular links and the complexity of concepts taught within them.

Advantages – maximising opportunities for building on prior knowledge and integrating new knowledge into larger concepts.

Disadvantages – more difficult to develop secure chronological understanding, so the ways in which you will do this will need to be planned for. For example, you could create a school timeline including all the periods of time that are studied, start units by identifying how they relate to previous ones, and provide opportunities for children to practise ordering key people and events from all the periods they have studied so far.

Earliest suggested year group units should be included in, so that knowledge is built cumulatively (this is not essential, just how I would ideally do it):

Year group	When unit could first be included:
Year 4	Achievements of ancient civilisations (after the water cycle and rivers as all of these civilisations were built around rivers) Romans (before volcanoes so that children better understand example of Pompeii; after overview of ancient civilisations)
Year 5	Ancient Greece (after science on forces, earth and space; complex concepts more suited to UKS2; builds on Romans even though it was earlier)
Year 6	Stone Age to Iron Age (alongside or after evolution and inheritance in science so that children have a good grasp on the lengths of time involved when studying prehistory; after the Romans as Roman invasion was end of prehistory)

Additional things to take into account when sequencing:

• If possible, it would be useful for the units on the Anglo Saxons and the Vikings to come after the Romans so that these three are in chronological order. This way, children would be following the story of Britain before 1066 from beginning to end. However, these units could be placed before the Romans if necessary.
• Depending on your choice of local study and post-1066 British history units, these may be best placed in Year 3, where they can build on knowledge of the more recent past that children began to develop in KS1.
• If you selected early Islamic civilisation, it will be important to sequence this after children have learnt the basics of Islam in RE, and in particular about the life of Mohammed.
• Links to geography. For example, trade, settlements and natural resources are key geographical concepts that are particularly relevant to the study of ancient civilisations. Will you sequence these units before or after children learn about these aspects of human and physical geography?

Unit Checklist

Does the unit include:

• A geography lesson to orientate children to the place before learning about its history?
• Opportunities for children to identify connections, contrasts and trends over time? For example, recognising that historically people have settled near water.
• Historical enquiry questions? For example, ‘Why was the second Roman invasion of Britain more successful than the first?’
• Opportunities for children to revisit and build on prior learning? For example, if studying the Stone Age to Iron Age after the Romans, children should revisit what they know about the Roman invasion of Britain when they learn that this event marked the end of prehistoric Britain.
• Opportunities for children to develop secure chronological understanding? For example, regularly ordering people or events from all the periods of time they have studied so far.
• Links to other subjects, particularly geography, science and RE, where these links enhance children’s learning. For example, children could learn about ancient Greek discoveries relating to the earth and space, such as Aristotle proposing that the Earth was a sphere and the proposal of the heliocentric model of the universe, if they have already covered this in science when learning about ancient Greece.

The National Curriculum specifies four very broad areas of study for KS1. As these objectives are so open, there are multiple ways that they can be translated into units of work when planning the curriculum. Each objective will be considered in turn, with suggestions about how to select units of work, and how they could be sequenced.

When making these choices, the following factors would be useful to take into account:

• What will be studied in KS2 and KS3, as the KS1 curriculum needs to provide a good foundation of knowledge for children to build on later. You may want to consider planning the KS2 curriculum before you plan KS1, and if possible contact local secondary schools for details of their KS3 curriculum.
• Any gaps that may exist in children’s general knowledge when considering the KS2 curriculum you have planned. For example, as the KS2 curriculum mainly consists of periods before 1066, children may not have an understanding of what knights were and features of castles, which they will probably come across in stories.
• The texts you plan to teach across the school and the background knowledge needed to access these. How crucial is understanding the background knowledge to the plot? For example, when reading Room 13, a brief explanation of the dissolution of the monasteries to help children understand the history of Whitby Abbey would be useful, but it’s not necessary for them to have studied this in depth. However, if you intend to study Street Child, it would be important for children to have background knowledge of the Victorians in order to access the text.
• The history of the local area – which figures were important in the history of the area? Did any significant events happen locally? Are there any significant buildings, historic sites or local industries? Thorough research here will help you select topics that are meaningful to your pupils and that can enhance children’s understanding of local geography too.
• Themes that will help children to better understand how daily life has changed over time, and that are relevant to their own lives – houses and homes, school, transport, communication, toys, technology, jobs.
• Promoting British Values and children’s moral, social, emotional and cultural development, as well as adding to pupils’ understanding of diversity. For example, selecting the nurses Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole as significant individuals to study could provide rich opportunities for children to both develop empathy, and their understanding of how the nurses’ different backgrounds affected the opportunities that were available to them.
• Note that there is no requirement to select only one unit of study for each of the four bullet points, so if you have time you may choose to select two or three examples to teach some of the objectives.

Changes within living memory

The guidance in the National Curriculum is that these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life. The broad themes listed above (home, school, transport, communication and technology) provide a useful focus for this area of study. When selecting which one(s) to focus on, consider those that are most relevant in your local area. For example, if your school has moved to a new building, changes in school life over time may be a good choice, or if there have been significant housing developments, changes to the size of the town and type of housing being built would be relevant. Opportunities for trips and visitors may influence your decision, for example if you have a local dockyard museum, canal or steam railway, changes in transport may be a good choice.

A unit of work on this objective could either track a theme, such as communication, through the decades from the 1920s to the present day, teaching about communication before the telephone, when telephones were commonly used in ordinary people’s houses, the introduction of the internet, ending with the wireless devices and smartphones we use today, and identifying how these changes impacted on people’s lives. Alternatively, life in a particular decade could be contrasted with modern life, looking at several themes such as homes, transport and communication.

Events beyond living memory

The National Curriculum specifies that these should be significant either nationally or globally. Suggestions are the Great Fire of London or the first aeroplane flight, although these are not statutory. Again the history of your local area can help to guide your choices – for schools in London, the Great Fire seems like a logical choice. Alternatively, you may wish to choose an event that is linked to one of the areas included in your geography curriculum.

Another suggestion in the National Curriculum is learning about events commemorated through festivals or anniversaries, for example learning about the reasons why we mark Remembrance Day each year. Themes that are not covered within other objectives could help with your decision – if you aren’t covering transport elsewhere, the first aeroplane flight may be a good way of filling that gap. Finally, consider any gaps in the KS2 curriculum. Are there any events that children will not have learnt about, that you consider are essential for children to know before they leave Year 6? This could be an opportunity to include these.

Lives of significant individuals in the past

The individuals you select must have contributed to national or international achievements. The important thing is that the people you select enable you to compare aspects of life in different periods. This indicates that the pairs of individuals you select should be separated by time.

This objective can be used to ensure that children have sufficient understanding of the features of periods that will be studied later, or that will be useful to provide background knowledge for reading or for local study in geography. For example, if there is a significant amount of Victorian history in your local area, you may select an aspect of Victorian life to study in KS2. In this case, comparing Queen Victoria with another monarch would support more in depth learning about the Victorians later. As a considerable number of classic children’s books were written or are set in Victorian times, comparing the life of a Victorian author with an author from a different period would enable children to access these texts more confidently.

Alternatively, you could select individuals whose lives provided opportunities to build on knowledge in other areas of the curriculum. For example, if the lives of explorers were selected here, that would provide opportunities to reinforce world geography knowledge such as continents, oceans and North and South Poles.

Significant historical events, places or people in your locality

You may want to make this choice last, so that you can choose an aspect or aspects of local history that does not already fit within one of the above three objectives. What have you chosen for your KS2 local history study? Think about what children will need to know to be able to access this unit of work. Would it be beneficial to select a unit that would provide children with useful background knowledge in KS1? Or is there another significant aspect of local history that children will not have the opportunity to study in KS2?

Suggested sequencing

As a general principle, learning should be sequenced so as to move from concepts that are ‘closer’ to children’s experiences in Year 1, to learning about more abstract concepts that are further in the past in Year 2. If you choose to do this, a logical way to sequence the objectives would be to cover changes within living memory and local history in Year 1, with the more complex changes beyond living memory and comparison of significant individuals’ lives in Year 2. However, the way you choose to sequence the units you have chosen is completely dependent on the particular places, people and events you will be teaching. For example, if you have chosen to teach both changes to transport within living memory and the first aeroplane flight, you may decide to start with the first aeroplane flight and then track changes chronologically to the present day. Or if your local study focuses on a Tudor house, this would naturally precede learning about the Great Fire of London. Additionally, links to geography and science may influence your decisions about sequencing. For example, learning about the Great Fire of London is enhanced by children having an understanding of the properties of materials, so it would be useful to place this unit after Year 2 science on materials.

Unit checklist

Does the unit include opportunities to:

• Identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods?
• Develop children’s understanding of chronology?
• Find out about the past from different sources of information?
• Ask and answer questions (following lines of enquiry)?
• Revisit and build on prior learning and key concepts (monarchy, source, community, chronology)? For example, remembering and ordering the names of previous monarchs studied before introducing a new monarch, or remembering the order in which significant events occurred, adding new events studied to the chronology previously learnt.
• Develop a thorough understanding of what is important about your local area, and how it has changed?