What are the KS2 National Curriculum History objectives?

The National Curriculum for primary History aims to provide children with a secure understanding of the past, and a coherent knowledge of Britain and the wider world from the earliest times right up to the modern era.

Here is the National Curriculum for KS2 History:

Purpose of study A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Aims The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils: 

• know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world 
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind 
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’ 
• understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses 
• understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed 
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Subject Content - KS2

Pupils should continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study. They should note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms. They should regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance. They should construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information. They should understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.

In planning to ensure the progression described above through teaching the British, local and world history outlined below, teachers should combine overview and depth studies to help pupils understand both the long arc of development and the complexity of specific aspects of the content.

Pupils should be taught about:

•  changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
•  the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain
•  Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots
• the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor
•  a local history study
• a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066
• the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer; The Indus Valley; Ancient Egypt; The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
• Ancient Greece – a study of Greek life and achievements and their influence on the western world
• a non-European society that provides contrasts with British history – one study chosen from: early Islamic civilization, including a study of Baghdad c. AD 900; Mayan civilization c. AD 900; Benin (West Africa) c. AD 900-1300

PlanBee's KS2 Primary History Resources

PlanBee has a variety of ready-to-teach History schemes of work for KS2 that cover the National Curriculum requirements. Written by experienced teachers, these schemes of work are designed to cultivate children's inquisitiveness, enabling them to become critical historians, informed citizens and effective communicators. They will enable children to develop historical enquiry skills, become confident investigators and gain secure chronological knowledge of the past.

What should I teach for KS2 History?

There is a little less freedom in the KS2 primary History curriculum than in KS1, although there are still plenty of opportunities to explore exciting events and time periods.

So what exactly do you need to teach your KS2 historians?

Early civilisations

There is a fairly large emphasis on exploring early civilisations in the primary History curriculum for KS2. A study of ancient Greece is a compulsory part of the curriculum, as is exploring an overview of the earliest civilisations and a depth study of either ancient Sumer, ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, or the Shang Dynasty of ancient China.

It's easy to miss the ‘overview of where and when the earliest civilisations appeared’ section within this objective and skip straight to exploring one of the civilisations mentioned in detail. There is a wealth of really engaging and useful learning that can be achieved through this study that can help children to understand how civilisations developed (and collapsed). Exploring early writing systems, how measurement and number systems began, how trade began, and building and architecture in the earliest civilisations will provide a really useful foundation for further learning when they come to explore one of these civilisations in more detail.

Themes in British History

When the new primary History curriculum came out in 2014, primary teachers all over the country started bemoaning the fact that the old favourites, like the Tudors and Victorians, were no longer mentioned on the curriculum and therefore couldn’t be taught in primary schools. However, the objective that rather vaguely instructs us to teach ‘a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological understanding beyond 1066’ neatly allows us to include all those great topics, as well as many others.

This opens a lot of doors to aspects or themes in British history that weren’t covered in the previous curriculum. Explore the history of women; investigate how the railway revolutionised Britain; find out about heroes of British history; explore the rise and fall of the British Empire; investigate medicine and diseases across the ages. There is such a wealth of British history you can draw on with your KS2 class that covers this objective perfectly.

What to teach when in KS2 History:

The curriculum does not specify when each of the required topics are to be covered but here are our suggestions for what to cover in lower KS2 and what to explore in upper KS2:

Year 3 or Year 4:

• Stone Age to Iron Age
• Roman Empire
• Anglo-Saxons and Scots
• Early civilisations: Ancient Egypt or Indus Valley
• Non-European society: Mayan civilisation

Year 5 or Year 6:

• Vikings and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England
• Shang Dynasty
• Ancient Greece
• Non-European society: Benin or Baghdad

These suggestions are based more upon the more challenging skills you can employ in the upper KS2 schemes, rather than the lower KS2 schemes of work being 'easier' to access.

Developing Historical Enquiry Skills

Whatever you choose to teach, it is important that children aren’t simply ‘taught’ the history. Part of becoming an engaged historian is learning how to glean information from evidence in the form of both primary and secondary sources. It is equally important that children learn to ask questions for themselves.

The basic process for historical enquiry is as follows:

1) Provide evidence
2) Ask questions
3) Suggest answers
4) Provide more evidence
5) Refine answers

...ad infinitum. Once children have answers to their initial questions, ideally this should generate more questions for the children to explore.

Let’s look at a specific example of how this could work in the classroom. For this example, children will be starting a new topic to cover the objective ‘Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots’:

1) Provide children with a picture of the Sutton Hoo helmet.

2) Challenge children to generate questions about the object. What is it? Who used it? What was it for? Who made it? When was it last used? Was this for a rich person or a poor person? What can it tell us about the person who wore it?

3) Encourage children to suggest answers to their initial questions, giving reasons for their choices. It’s important for children to use the word ‘because’ in their answers to justify their responses. For example, I think this was worn by a man because men used to fight in battles more than women, or I think it is for a rich person because I can see gold in it. Agree as a class who they think the helmet belonged to.

4) Provide children with further evidence. Explain that this helmet was found along with a lot of other artefacts by archaeologists in 1938. They were all buried in the remains of a ship that was found in Ipswich. Provide further photographs of the Sutton Hoo treasure. What else can we find out about the owner of the mask now?5) Challenge children to come up with further evidence, based on the artefacts, about who was buried at Sutton Hoo.

6) Ask children if there are any other questions they want to find out about now that they know a little more about the contents of the burial ship.

You don’t have to use artefacts for this kind of enquiry process. Try giving a photograph or a painting of the famous person you’ll be studying as a starting point. Or try using an extract from a speech or a historical document. It’s amazing how much children can get out of these sources when they get used to asking questions and using what they can see before them to generate answers.

The KS2 History curriculum may seem prescriptive at first glance but it actually provides a real wealth of opportunity to give your children in a lifelong love of history (if it’s taught in the right way). If you want any further help or ideas for delivering History topics to your class, just get in touch with the Resource Creators at PlanBee and we’ll be happy to help.