ABSTRACT

History in the National Curriculum requires children at Key Stage 1 to learn about chronological sequence, motive and causation, and similarities and differences between now and past times, and to use language associated with the passing of time. During the first three years of school, they should learn to recount episodes from stories of the past, to sequence events and objects, and begin to develop an awareness that the past is divided into periods of time. Children are expected to consider the reasons why people in the past behaved as they did, and to identify reasons for historical events or developments. They are expected to make distinctions between past and present in their own and in other people’s lives, then to begin to recognise similarities and differences between different periods in the past.