What the lesson is about

The primary history collection on enquiry skills and research has a selection of ideas for children to acquire the necessary skills and provide starting points for research topics.

Getting started

Primary History - Enquiry Skills, from Teachers TV, has three “great lesson ideas” for developing primary children’s enquiry skills. An ideal activity for P5s is a board game that encourages pupils to ask searching questions about objects from the past. In Shades of Grey, pupils look at the varied contributions historical figures made to society at the time, allowing them to understand that perspectives of characters can change. And in Luckiest Historian, the teacher uses cards to represent historical primary and secondary sources and asks pupils to order them in terms of reliability and richness as historical sources.

Taking it further

“A Celtic Roundhouse” has links showing 3D images of dwellings from different historical periods, such as the building stages and methods of construction of a Tudor house and a Celtic roundhouse.

The ancient Egyptians are always popular. In the “Ancient Egyptian Research Project”, aimed at P4-6, questions are asked about various aspects of life in ancient Egypt to support a class research project. And “Historical Enquiry - The Romans” has lesson plans and video evidence to support a class investigation into the uprising led by the Celtic leader Boudicca against the Romans.

A series of history packs support enquiry by providing various sources of information about the past, under four time periods: Earliest People, Stuart, Victorian and WWII. The site includes questions and activities.

Where to find it

www.tes.co.ukprimary-enquiry.