Key Stage 1 history · Changes within living memory
KS1 history: changes within living memory explained
Living memory means the time that people who are alive today can remember. In Years 1 and 2, children compare life now with life when their parents and grandparents were young, looking at everyday things such as toys, shops, schools, homes and transport. It is often a child’s first real history topic, because the evidence is close to home and the experts are in the family.
Changes within living memory, explained
The National Curriculum asks schools to teach about changes within living memory and, where appropriate, to use them to show aspects of change in national life. It doesn’t name a topic, so schools choose. Popular choices include toys and games, holidays, shops and shopping, homes and household equipment, school life and transport. If you are curious what your child’s class is studying, the school’s long-term plan will usually say.
The key skill is comparing. Children collect similarities and differences between “when Grandma was little” and “now”: a television with only a few channels in the living room, compared with screens everywhere; a trip to the corner shop, compared with a delivery to the door. Good teaching also finds things that have stayed the same, such as playing outside or having a favourite sweet, because not everything changes. Children are asked why something changed, not just that it did.
“Within living memory” moves forward every year. For a child in 2026, their grandparents’ childhoods, often in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, fall inside it, and so do the memories of great-grandparents in families where they are still around. Events further back, such as the Great Fire of London, are beyond living memory and can only be known from sources. Children aren’t expected to learn dates here, but they should be able to say that something happened “when my grandparents were young”, and to place it between “long ago” and “now”.
Because the aim is to reveal change in national life, teachers sometimes pick out big shifts that affected many families. Examples might be the spread of mobile phones, more cars on the roads, central heating replacing coal fires in many homes, or supermarkets selling food from all over the world. Treat these as examples, not a checklist: each school picks its own focus, and your child’s class may look at something quite different.
Words your child will hear
- Living memory
- The time that people who are alive today can remember.
- Generation
- People born around the same time. Children, parents and grandparents are different generations.
- Similarity
- Something that is the same in two different times, such as children playing games.
- Difference
- Something that has changed between then and now.
- Oral history
- The past as told in spoken words by someone who remembers it.
- Technology
- Tools and machines made by people, from irons and telephones to computers.
- Old-fashioned
- Belonging to an earlier time and not used much now.
What the National Curriculum says
The programme of study for Key Stage 1 says:
- Pupils should be taught about changes within living memory – where appropriate, these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life
- Pupils should know where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods.
- Pupils should develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time.
Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Try it: how has the telephone changed?
Your child interviews a grandparent about the telephones in their home when they were young and compares them with phones today. How can they record it?
- Prepare three questions before the conversation: Where was the phone in your house? Who could use it? What could you do on it?
- Listen and write down one short sentence for each answer. A grandparent might say: “There was one phone in the hall, and the whole family shared it.”
- Describe the phone your child knows: it is carried around, belongs to one person, and can take photographs, send messages and go online.
- Make a two-column chart headed “Then” and “Now”, and fill in a row for each question. Add a row for similarities: both are used to talk to people far away.
- Think about why it changed. New inventions made phones smaller and more powerful, and over time more people could afford their own. Write the answer as a “because” sentence.
When my grandparent was young, the phone stayed in one place in the house and the whole family shared it. Now many people have their own phone that they carry around. Both are used to talk to people who are far away. Phones changed because new inventions made them smaller, and more people could afford them.
Common mistakes and how to help
Thinking that things changed all at once
Comparing two snapshots, “then” and “now”, makes the change look like a single jump.
What helps: Ask when your grandparent first had a television, a microwave or a mobile phone. Most changes came slowly, and old and new things often existed side by side.
Assuming that people long ago were less clever, or unhappy without modern things
Children judge the past by what they have now, so no phone or tablet sounds like a hardship.
What helps: Ask what children did for fun before screens, and what they enjoyed about it. Things were different, not simply worse, and people solved problems with what they had.
Assuming that what happened in your own family happened to everyone
Children only know their own home. One child’s nan may have had a car and a telephone, while another’s did not, and life differed in towns and the countryside.
What helps: Ask more than one person, or compare answers with a friend’s family. This is also how historians work: one account is a source, many accounts build a picture.
Only noticing differences and missing what stayed the same
Differences are more eye-catching, and a “then and now” chart invites children to hunt for them.
What helps: Ask, “What would your grandparent recognise at our house?” Children usually spot games, families, food and bedtime stories, which helps them see the past as lived by real people.
How to help at home
- Interview a relative. Choose one topic, such as school dinners or the walk to school, and write down three questions together. If the relative lives far away, a phone call or a voice message works well.
- Make a then-and-now pair. Find a photograph of a street, shop or school from the past, ideally from a family album, and take a matching one today. Ask your child to point out three things that are the same and three that are different.
- Play a game from the past. Ask a grandparent what they played outside, then try hopscotch, skipping or marbles in the garden or the park. Marbles are small, so keep them away from younger brothers and sisters.
- Look at a shopping list. Talk about what an older relative used to buy, where they bought it and how they carried it home. Compare with how your family shops now, and ask what your child thinks will change in the future.
Related topics
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