A no-prep, 6-lesson history unit on A local history study. Written for Year 4 (ages 8-9). Pick it up at lunchtime, teach it that afternoon - every lesson has a full teacher script, projectable slides, a pupil worksheet, and an exit quiz.
Driving question: How can you read the LAYERS of history hidden in your own town?

What’s included

• 6 x Teacher lesson plans (Word, fully scripted)
• 6 x Pupil worksheets in 3 differentiated tiers (Support / Core / Stretch)
• 6 x Projectable slide decks (PowerPoint, ~22 slides each)
• 6 x Exit quizzes (single-page printable, with answer key)
• 1 x Knowledge Organiser (Word, 2-page A4 landscape)
• 1 x End-of-unit assessment with baseline + mark scheme
• 50+ original illustrations included throughout
• Curated kid-appropriate YouTube videos linked from each lesson’s slide deck

Curriculum links

• UK National Curriculum - KS2 History: A local history study - Discovering Your Town
• How to read the history of YOUR own town
• Layers of British history visible in any English town
• Adapting national history to local sources

What pupils will learn

• Pupils know how to look at THEIR town with a historian’s eye - buildings, street names, monuments
• Pupils know about layers of English history visible in most towns (prehistoric, Roman, medieval, Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, modern)
• Pupils know how to use LOCAL SOURCES - old maps, the Domesday Book, parish records, photographs
• Pupils know that EVERY English town has its own story - and that the national story is made up of millions of local stories
• Pupils know about the great national changes (Norman Conquest, Industrial Revolution, World Wars) AS THEY HAPPENED in their town

What pupils will be able to do

• Pupils can build a TIMELINE of their own town
• Pupils can analyse a LOCAL SOURCE (an old map, a photograph, a memorial inscription)
• Pupils can interview an OLDER family member or neighbour about local memories
• Pupils can use ‘because’, ‘so’ and ‘however’ to explain change in their area
• Pupils can identify continuity and change across the history of one place