Key Stage 3 history · British history

KS3 Britain and the world 1901 to today: a parents’ guide

The last big period in the Key Stage 3 history curriculum runs from 1901 to the present day, and covers the challenges faced by Britain, Europe and the wider world. It includes the First and Second World Wars, the fight for votes for women, the Great Depression, the creation of the welfare state, the end of empire and the changes of recent decades. It is the period closest to your child’s own family history, which makes it easy to bring to life at home.

Britain and the world, 1901 to today, explained

The curriculum asks schools to teach “challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day”. The Holocaust is a compulsory part of this period and has its own topic. The rest of the list is non-statutory, so schools choose their emphasis. The examples are women’s suffrage, the First World War and the Peace Settlement, the inter-war years including the Great Depression and the rise of dictators, the Second World War and Churchill’s wartime leadership, the welfare state, Indian independence and the end of empire, social, cultural and technological change in post-war Britain, and Britain’s place in the world since 1945.

In the first half of the century the story is one of conflict and upheaval. Campaigners for votes for women, some peaceful and some militant, pressed their case before 1914. The First World War, from 1914 to 1918, drew in soldiers from across Europe and the empire, and the peace treaties that followed from 1919 left bitter resentments. Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression, with mass unemployment in Britain and elsewhere, and in this climate Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. The Second World War began in 1939 and ended in 1945.

After 1945 the focus shifts to rebuilding and to a changing place in the world. The Labour government elected in 1945 set up the National Health Service in 1948 and expanded social security, building on wartime plans for tackling poverty, illness and unemployment. British India became the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, and over the following decades most of the empire became independent countries. Pupils also look at how British society changed through migration, new technology and shifts in culture, and at Britain’s relationships with Europe, the Commonwealth and the United States.

Because this period is recent, it contains a lot of evidence: photographs, film, posters, speeches, newspapers and the memories of people still alive. Teachers use these to ask whether sources can be trusted, and how and why historians reach different conclusions. Pupils are also expected to pursue enquiries, including some they frame themselves, and to write structured accounts supported by evidence. That is why many history lessons end in an extended piece of writing that answers a question, rather than a list of facts.

Words your child will hear

Suffrage: The right to vote. A suffragist or suffragette campaigned for women to have it.
Armistice: An agreement to stop fighting. The fighting of the First World War ended with the armistice of 11 November 1918.
Depression: A long period of economic slump with high unemployment, as in the 1930s.
Dictator: A ruler with total power who does not allow free elections or open opposition.
Welfare state: A system in which the government provides support such as healthcare, pensions and benefits, paid for through taxes.
Partition: The division of a territory into separate states, as with British India in 1947.
Decolonisation: The process by which colonies became independent countries.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught about challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day
Pupils should extend and deepen their chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, so that it provides a well-informed context for wider learning.
Pupils should identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts, and analyse trends within periods and over long arcs of time.
Pupils should pursue historically valid enquiries including some they have framed themselves, and create relevant, structured and evidentially supported accounts in response.

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

Try it: explaining a turning point

Why were some women given the vote in 1918?

Check the facts first. The Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave the vote to women over 30 who met a property qualification, or whose husbands did, which was around eight million women. It also gave the vote to almost all men over 21. Women did not get the vote on equal terms with men until 1928.
List the possible causes. These include campaigning before the war, the work women did during the war, and the need to change a voting system that had left many soldiers without the vote.
Look at the campaigning. Suffragists argued peacefully, while suffragettes, who formed the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903, used protests, window-breaking and hunger strikes. Historians disagree about whether militancy helped the cause or hurt it, which is a good example of an interpretation.
Look at the war. Women worked in factories, on the land and in transport and nursing. Many politicians said afterwards that this had changed their minds. The age limit of 30 was set partly because politicians did not want women to outnumber men among voters after the war’s heavy losses, a reminder that the reasons were mixed.
Rank the causes and explain your choice. A strong answer does not say “because of the war” or “because of the suffragettes”. It says how the causes linked, and which mattered most.

A model answer might say: “Women over 30 gained the vote in 1918 because years of campaigning had made the issue impossible to ignore and because the war changed attitudes towards women’s work. Both mattered, but the war probably made the decisive difference, because it forced an overhaul of the electoral system. The limits on the Act, the age and property rules, show that politicians were still cautious and that the campaign was not yet won.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Believing all women got the vote in 1918

The story is often shortened to “women got the vote in 1918”. The Act only included women over 30 who met a property qualification, while almost all men over 21 could vote.

What helps: Ask your child to find the two dates, 1918 and 1928, and explain what changed in between. It is a good example of why precise wording matters in history.

Thinking Churchill was Prime Minister for the whole of the Second World War

Churchill is so strongly linked with the war that it seems he must have led throughout. He became Prime Minister in May 1940, after the war had started, and he lost the general election of July 1945, before the war with Japan had formally ended.

What helps: Ask who led before him and who came after. It is a good way to learn that famous names can hide a longer, more complicated story.

Picturing the First World War as only trench fighting in France

The Western Front dominates films and memorials. The war also involved fighting at sea and in the air, and in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and it drew heavily on soldiers and workers from across the British Empire.

What helps: Look at a map of where fighting took place and ask who was there. Searching local war memorials for names also brings the scale of the war home.

Treating Indian independence as a simple, peaceful handover

The dates, 14 and 15 August 1947 for Pakistan and India, are easy to remember, and they are often described as the end of the Raj. The partition that came with independence caused mass migration and terrible violence, and historians’ estimates of the number of deaths vary widely.

What helps: Explain that independence and partition were linked but are not the same thing. Encourage your child to think about how the same events might be remembered differently in India, Pakistan and Britain.

How to help at home

Interview a relative. Ask a grandparent or older relative what they remember about a big event or change in their lifetime, such as a general election, a strike, a royal occasion or a family move. Then ask your child how reliable memory is as evidence and what other sources could check it.
Check the local war memorial. Visit a memorial together and read the names. Pick one and see what else can be found out about the person. It shows how national events reached individual families.
Compare headlines. Look at newspaper front pages from a famous date, such as VE Day or the first moon landing, if you can find archive copies. Ask what each paper chooses to show, and who it is written for.
Make a decade chart. Make a simple chart with a column for each decade from 1900 and record key events, inventions and changes in daily life. Pupils must analyse trends over long periods, and a chart makes them visible.
Talk about both sides of change. Take a change such as the creation of the NHS or the end of empire and ask who gained, who lost and who was not asked. This is exactly the kind of weighing the curriculum wants.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Stone Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Bronze Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Iron Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Roman invasions and the army
Key Stage 2: Roman conquest and Hadrian’s Wall
Key Stage 2: Boudica and British resistance
Key Stage 2: Romanisation of Britain
Key Stage 2: Romans leave, Anglo-Saxons arrive
Key Stage 2: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, villages and art
Key Stage 2: Anglo-Saxon Christian conversion
Key Stage 2: Viking raids and invasion
Key Stage 2: Alfred the Great and Athelstan
Key Stage 2: Danegeld, laws and Edward the Confessor