Developing Chronological Understanding: EYFS - Year 6

At Swansfield Park Primary School, we believe that a secure knowledge of chronology helps our children understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, and the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups. By learning how the world has changed - and is continually changing - it helps children builds a sense of identity and belonging as they come to appreciate the diversity of human experience and understand more about themselves and as members of a diverse society. It enables the learner to understand similarity and difference, continuity and change, change and progress/regression, all of which have broad relevance and significance in today's world.

At Swansfield Park Primary School, we develop this understanding through a series of small, sequential steps, and also by revisiting and expanding upon previously learned skills. For example, a child in EYFS might join in with their friends and the class teacher to construct a timeline of their lived experience focusing on their journey through the school from September to 'now'; whilst a child in Year 6 would also construct a timeline, but theirs would be more abstract and be populated by events and eras they have learned about and be across both BCE and CE, featuring contemporaneous events (the construction of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, for example).

Examples of the work that children might produce to support and develop this understanding are given below.

 

Hall Timeline
In September 2022, we renewed our hall display boards to feature historical periods studied throughout the school. Each class contributed by creating one board, with each phase having three periods to choose from. The boards are displayed in chronological order around the hall from the Stone Age to the school's construction in 1955.
 
Events each class depicted on their board was explicitly linked to their learning in that year group or phase. For example, whilst children in Year 1 and 2 to do not study the Victorians, they do learn about significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national achievements and significant events and people in their own locality; in this case the event and person studied is Grace Darling and her rescuing of the crew from the Forfarshire in 1838.
 
 
Chronological Understanding in EYFS
In EYFS, children's chronological understanding is developed orally and in a group context. Children are encouraged to share changes which they have observed or have happened to them within their lifetime. Children often construct a shared timeline to show how they used to look when they were babies, or what they have done and how they have changed since they joined the school in September. Additionally, children may reflect on significant events which have happened to them, such as the birth of a sibling or snowy days in winter.
 
In Reception, children also learn about changes which occur all around us. For example, when learning about plants, children demonstrate their understanding of the life cycle of a sunflower.
 
Chronological Understanding in KS1
In Years 1 and 2, children's understanding of chronology starts to be applied in situations which are increasingly abstract from their own lived experience. They begin to sequence events of stories which they have learned about as well as recognising that the reason people in these stories are different from them (the clothes they wear, for example) is because they lived a long time ago. Children also begin to construct simple time lines to compare when events they have learned about have happened. Chronology is also applied in different contexts and different subjects, such as when understanding the different stages of animal life cycles and that one stage must come before another.
 
Chronological Understanding in LKS2
Building on the skills children developed in KS1, children in LKS2 begin to apply knowledge of timelines to historical eras as well as being introduced to the concept of AD and BC in their learning about the Ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire; comparing these time periods to those such as the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and the Victorians. Their learning is linked to what they have done previously, with explicit parallels drawn between creating a family tree for Queen Victoria and discussions about their own family.
 
Chronological Understanding in UKS2
In addition to becoming increasingly confident with the concept of BC and AD and becoming more able to accurately represent events from around the world on a timeline - including understanding concurrent events such as the Great Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge - children apply their knowledge of chronology in increasingly complex ways. They investigate changes over time, including developments in crime and punishment as well as how some ideas have developed. Learning is also linked to what they have studied previously; such as links being drawn between the life cycle of animals and plants and the concept of inheritance.