Key Stage 1 history · Historical skills

KS1 history: time words and timelines for parents

In Years 1 and 2, children build a first sense of time. They learn the everyday words for it, such as yesterday, long ago, before and after, and they begin to place people and events in order on a timeline. It sounds simple, but a clear feel for older and newer is what makes every later history topic make sense, from castles and Victorians to the Great Fire of London.

Time words and timelines, explained

Young children live mostly in the present, and “ages ago” can mean last week or last century. At the start of Year 1 the aim is simply to get the language right: yesterday, today and tomorrow, then before and after, then old, older and oldest, and finally long ago. Teachers tie these words to things children can see and touch, such as their own baby photographs, the order of a story or the sequence of the school day.

The National Curriculum calls the bigger picture a chronological framework. That just means a mental timeline that the people and events children study can be hung on. Children don’t need to memorise dates at this age. Most classrooms have a physical timeline, perhaps a washing line or a long strip of paper, and pictures are pegged on in order: a baby photo, a first day at school, a grandparent’s wedding photograph, a castle, a steam train. Many Year 2 children can say that the Great Fire of London was longer ago than their grandparents’ childhood without knowing the year.

Alongside putting things in order, children compare. They look at two pictures of a kitchen, a street or a classroom from different periods and say what is the same and what is different: a washing line and a tumble dryer, a coal fire and a radiator. Teachers use simple pairs such as “then and now”, and children are asked to explain a difference rather than just spot it.

A wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms is part of the requirement, so children hear and are encouraged to use words such as past, present, ancient, modern, old-fashioned, invention, century and decade. A century is 100 years and a decade is ten; in Year 2 these are usually met as words first, with the arithmetic coming later. Many schools do introduce a few dates in Year 2, but they mostly work as labels on the timeline rather than something children calculate with.

Words your child will hear

Past, present, future: What has already happened, what is happening now, and what is still to come.
Chronological order: In the order things happened, usually oldest first.
Timeline: A line, drawn or pegged up, with events placed along it in the order they happened.
Century: A hundred years. We live in the twenty-first century.
Decade: Ten years.
Generation: People born at about the same time. A child, a parent and a grandparent are three generations.
Modern and old-fashioned: Modern means belonging to the present time; old-fashioned means belonging to an earlier time.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 1 says:

Pupils should develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time.
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 use a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: putting four pictures in order

Your child has four pictures of ways to light a room: an oil lamp, a gas lamp on a wall bracket, an old glass light bulb with a glowing wire inside, and a modern LED bulb. Can they put them in order, oldest first, and say how they know?

Look closely at each picture and say what you notice. The oil lamp has a flame and a glass chimney. The gas lamp has a flame too, but it is fed by a pipe. Both bulbs light up when a switch is pressed.
Sort the pictures into two groups: ones with a flame and ones that use electricity. Lighting with a flame is much older than lighting with electricity, so the oil lamp and the gas lamp go on the left of the timeline.
Decide between the two flames. A gas lamp needs gas pipes laid through the building, which came after simple oil lamps, so the oil lamp goes first.
Decide between the two electric bulbs. The glowing-wire bulb is the older design. The LED bulb is the one on sale in shops today and uses much less electricity, so it goes last.
Say it aloud using time words: “The oil lamp is the oldest. After that came the gas lamp. Then came the glass bulb. The LED bulb is the newest.” Then give one difference (flame or electricity) and one similarity (they all give light).

Oldest to newest: oil lamp, gas lamp, glowing-wire bulb, LED bulb. Children aren’t expected to know dates here, only to use clues and time words.

Common mistakes and how to help

Putting everything old into one lump called “long ago”

A Roman soldier, a castle, a Victorian chimney sweep and a dinosaur all feel equally far away to a six-year-old, because no one in the family remembers any of them.

What helps: Use a long strip of paper and mark the distances out. If one sheet of kitchen roll stands for ten years, your child’s life is under one sheet and the Great Fire of London is more than thirty-five sheets away. The gaps matter more than the labels.

Thinking grandparents lived in Victorian times, or that people in old photographs lived in a black and white world

Anything old can seem to belong to one big “olden days”. Early photographs were in black and white, so children assume the world looked that way.

What helps: Count generations: you, your parents, your grandparents. A grandparent’s childhood is usually around fifty to sixty years back, while the Victorian age ended more than a hundred years ago. Show old paintings in colour to make the point that it was the cameras, not the world, that were in black and white.

Mixing up before and after, or ordering by size or importance instead of by date

These words depend on what you are comparing with. “Before lunch” is easy; “before the Romans” has no personal anchor.

What helps: Practise with sequences your child lives in: morning routine, a recipe, a story. Always say the anchor aloud: “Teeth are brushed after breakfast and before school.”

Believing an object or a person is older simply because it is bigger, broken or looks worn

Wear and size are visible clues, so children lean on them, but a new building can look old and an old coin can be shiny.

What helps: Teach better clues together: materials, how it works (does it need electricity?), what people are wearing, and whether a date is written on it.

How to help at home

Make a family timeline. Peg photographs on a piece of string in order: your child as a baby, starting school, a parent’s childhood, a grandparent’s wedding. Ask “Which came first? What happened after?” and let your child rearrange mistakes themselves.
Use time words naturally. At bedtime, talk through the day with before, after, then and next. At breakfast, look ahead to tomorrow. A few of these a day does more than a special session.
Sort old and new pairs. Pick a pair of things around the house, such as a wind-up toy and a battery toy, or a paper map and a screen. Ask which idea came first and how your child can tell.
Ask an older relative. Have your child ask a grandparent or neighbour what they did on a Saturday when they were seven. Write down one sentence and add it to the timeline as “when Grandma was little”.
Hunt for dates on a walk. On a safe pavement walk with an adult, look for dates carved above doorways, on foundation stones or on old school and chapel buildings. Work out together roughly how long ago the building went up, and whether that was in a grandparent’s time or long before.