History

Locate Egypt on a map of Africa and understand that it is a country in a very hot, dry desert, but the River Nile — the longest river in the world — flows through it, bringing water and rich soil that allowed people to grow food and build one of the earliest great civilisations

Know and use the key vocabulary of ancient Egypt — pharaoh, pyramid, tomb, mummy/mummification, hieroglyphs, papyrus, sarcophagus, canopic jar, natron, archaeologist, artefact, Nile, delta, irrigation, shaduf, scribe, vizier, obelisk, sphinx, cartouche — and apply these terms accurately when describing Egyptian society, religion, and material culture

Know that ancient Egypt was ruled by powerful kings and queens called pharaohs, who lived in grand palaces and made the laws — and that one of the most famous pharaohs is Tutankhamun, a boy who became pharaoh as a child and whose golden tomb was discovered thousands of years later

Know that the ancient Egyptians built enormous stone pyramids as tombs for the pharaohs, that the Great Pyramid at Giza was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and is still standing today, and that the Great Sphinx — a statue with a lion's body and a human head — guards the pyramids

Understand that the ancient Egyptians believed in many gods and goddesses and believed that life continued after death in a wonderful afterlife — which is why they took great care to prepare bodies and fill tombs with food, jewellery, and precious objects for the dead person to use

Describe what everyday life was like for ordinary people in ancient Egypt: farmers grew wheat and barley near the Nile, families lived in mud-brick houses, children played games and had pets, and people ate bread, fish, fruit, and vegetables

Know that the ancient Egyptians used a special writing system called hieroglyphs — pictures and symbols that stood for sounds and words — and that they wrote on a paper-like material called papyrus, which was made from a plant that grew along the Nile

Understand that we know about ancient Egypt because archaeologists have dug up and studied objects buried in the sand for thousands of years — and that one of the most exciting discoveries ever was when Howard Carter found the hidden tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, filled with golden treasures

Understand how the pyramids were built: thousands of workers moved enormous stone blocks using ramps, rollers, and sledges, the work was organised by the pharaoh's officials, and the design evolved from flat-topped mastabas to step pyramids (like Djoser's) to the smooth-sided Great Pyramid — and know that later pharaohs were buried in hidden rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings

Place ancient Egypt on a timeline spanning over 3,000 years — from around 3100 BCE (unification under the first pharaoh) to 30 BCE (Roman conquest) — understanding that this civilisation lasted longer than the time between the Romans and today, and was divided into major periods: the Old Kingdom (pyramid age), Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom (empire age)

Understand that ancient Egypt was divided into Upper Egypt (the narrow river valley in the south) and Lower Egypt (the wide delta in the north), that the two lands were united under one pharaoh, and that Egyptians managed the Nile's water through irrigation canals and shadufs to grow crops year-round

Use tomb paintings, artefacts, and objects from ancient Egypt as evidence to find out about daily life: Nebamun's tomb paintings show hunting and feasting, jewellery and furniture reveal craftsmanship, and everyday objects like pots and tools tell us what ordinary people used — understanding that these sources are how we piece together information about a civilisation that ended thousands of years ago

Name and describe key Egyptian gods and goddesses: Ra the sun god who sailed across the sky each day, Osiris the ruler of the afterlife, Isis the goddess of magic and motherhood, Anubis the jackal-headed god of mummification, Horus the falcon-headed sky god, Thoth the ibis-headed god of writing, and Bastet the cat goddess of protection

Know that scribes were specially trained people who could read and write hieroglyphs, that the Rosetta Stone — a slab with the same text in three scripts — was the key to cracking the hieroglyphic code, and that Jean-François Champollion used it to decipher hieroglyphs in 1822 after centuries of mystery

Describe the social structure of ancient Egypt as a pyramid-shaped hierarchy: the pharaoh at the top, then priests and nobles, followed by scribes and soldiers, then craftworkers and merchants, and farmers and labourers at the base — understanding that a person's position was usually inherited and determined their whole way of life

Describe the step-by-step process of mummification: the body was washed, internal organs were removed and placed in canopic jars, the body was dried with natron salt for 40 days, then wrapped in linen bandages with amulets tucked between the layers, and finally placed in a decorated coffin (sarcophagus)

Evaluate ancient Egypt's lasting legacy: the Egyptians developed early forms of medicine, mathematics (used to build pyramids and survey land after floods), astronomy (calendar based on star observations), and engineering that influenced later civilisations including Greece and Rome — and compare ancient Egypt with other early civilisations (Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Shang Dynasty) to identify shared features like writing, agriculture, cities, and organised religion

Know that ancient Egypt eventually came to an end: the last pharaoh was Cleopatra VII, who allied with Rome but was defeated by Octavian (later Augustus) in 31 BCE, after which Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire — ending over 3,000 years of pharaonic rule and beginning a new chapter in Egypt's history

Analyse Egyptian art and architecture: understand that Egyptian paintings followed strict conventions (people shown from the side with eyes from the front, size indicating importance), that tomb and temple design evolved from mastabas to step pyramids to smooth pyramids to rock-cut temples like Abu Simbel, and that obelisks, colossal statues, and temples like Karnak demonstrated the pharaoh's power and devotion to the gods

Read and construct historical timelines — place Ancient Egyptian periods, pharaohs, and key events on a timeline relative to each other and to the present day; interpret maps showing the Nile delta, trade routes, and the location of key sites

Understand that ancient Egypt had a thriving economy based on farming surplus, trade, and specialised labour: the Nile's fertile soil produced enough food to support craftworkers, priests, and officials, and Egypt traded along the Nile and across the Mediterranean — exchanging gold, papyrus, and grain for cedarwood from Lebanon, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, and incense from Punt

Describe the Egyptian belief in the judgement of the dead: after death, the heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at in the Hall of Judgement, with Anubis overseeing the scales and Thoth recording the result — a pure heart meant entry to the Field of Reeds (paradise), while a heavy heart was devoured by the monster Ammit, and know that the Book of the Dead contained spells to help the deceased pass this test

Understand that the pharaoh was not just a ruler but was believed to be a living god — the intermediary between the gods and the people — and that the concept of Ma'at (truth, justice, and cosmic order) guided Egyptian law and government, with viziers and officials administering the kingdom on the pharaoh's behalf

Understand that modern Egyptologists use advanced technologies — CT scanning of mummies, satellite imagery to find buried structures, DNA analysis — alongside traditional excavation, and think critically about the ethics of archaeology: whether mummies should be displayed in museums, who owns ancient artefacts, and how colonial-era collecting affects how we study and present ancient Egypt today

Explain how knowledge of ancient Egypt is built from multiple source types — inscriptions, papyri, artefacts, and physical remains — and critically evaluate each: what biases, gaps, and distortions exist? Explore how Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphs transformed the field, and why the same artefact can be interpreted differently by different scholars

Describe the Egyptian achievement in mathematics and engineering: the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus shows calculations of area, volume, and fractions; the precision of pyramid alignment (within 0.05° of true north) required sophisticated surveying; and Egyptian medical papyri describe detailed anatomical knowledge and pharmacological remedies — placing Egypt as a major contributor to the early history of science and technology

Analyse who built the pyramids and why, evaluating the evidence against the alien-builder myth and the slave-labour myth: archaeological evidence from worker villages at Giza shows a paid, skilled, well-fed workforce; discuss the social functions of monument building as a form of state organisation, religious duty, and employment; and assess the current controversy over newly discovered construction ramps and logistics

Examine Egypt's relationships with neighbouring civilisations: trade networks reaching Nubia, the Levant, and Punt; the Hyksos invasion and the introduction of the chariot; and the New Kingdom empire and its conflict with the Hittites, culminating in the Battle of Kadesh and the world's earliest surviving peace treaty — understanding Egypt not as isolated but as part of a connected ancient world

Trace the end of ancient Egyptian civilisation through its successive conquests — Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian (Alexander the Great), and finally Roman — and explain how each conqueror was simultaneously shaped by Egyptian culture; examine Cleopatra VII as the last pharaoh and as a multilingual political strategist; and consider what survives of ancient Egypt in modern culture, religion, and language

Locate Greece and Italy on a map and know they are countries around the Mediterranean Sea where two great ancient civilisations — Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome — grew up thousands of years ago, long after the ancient Egyptians but long before our time

Know that Roman soldiers marched across a huge empire building straight roads and strong walls, and that some Roman roads, walls, and buildings can still be seen today — showing that the Romans were powerful builders whose work has lasted thousands of years

Know the Roman founding myth of Romulus and Remus — twin brothers abandoned as babies, raised by a she-wolf, who grew up to found the city of Rome — and understand that this is a legend the Romans told about how their city began

Know that the ancient Greeks believed in many gods and goddesses who lived on Mount Olympus — including Zeus (king of the gods, thunder), Athena (wisdom), Poseidon (the sea), Hermes (messages), and Aphrodite (love) — and that each god had special powers and a role in the world

Compare how children in ancient Greece or Rome lived with how children live today — including differences in school (writing on wax tablets, learning to fight in Sparta), food (olives, bread, grapes), games, and clothing (tunics and sandals) — and understand these civilisations existed thousands of years ago

Retell at least one Greek myth involving a hero and a monster — such as Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth, Heracles (Hercules) and the lion, or Perseus and Medusa — and understand that these were stories ancient Greeks told to explain the world and teach lessons

Know that the Olympic Games began in ancient Greece at a place called Olympia as athletic competitions held in honour of Zeus, and that the modern Olympic Games we watch today were inspired by those ancient games

Describe how the Roman army was organised into legions of highly trained soldiers, how Julius Caesar first raided Britain in 55 BC and Emperor Claudius later conquered it in AD 43, and explain why the Romans wanted to expand their empire — for land, resources, taxes, and glory

Describe daily life in a Roman town — the forum (marketplace and meeting place), public baths, amphitheatre, and villas — and explain that the Romans were brilliant engineers who built straight roads, aqueducts to carry water, underfloor heating (hypocaust), and Hadrian's Wall to mark the empire's northern frontier in Britain

Compare Athens and Sparta as two very different Greek city-states: Athens focused on learning, arts, debate, and democracy, while Sparta focused on military training, discipline, and obedience — and understand that a city-state was a city that ruled itself like a small country

Name the major Greek gods and their roles — Zeus (king, thunder), Hera (queen, marriage), Athena (wisdom, warfare), Poseidon (sea), Apollo (sun, music), Artemis (hunting, moon), Ares (war), Aphrodite (love), Hermes (messengers), Hephaestus (fire, crafts), Hades (underworld) — and know that the Parthenon in Athens was a grand temple built to honour Athena

Understand that Athens invented democracy — a system where free male citizens gathered in an Assembly to debate and vote on important decisions for the city — but that women, enslaved people, and foreigners were not allowed to vote

Understand that the Romans adopted the Greek gods but gave them new names — Zeus became Jupiter, Hera became Juno, Ares became Mars, Athena became Minerva, Poseidon became Neptune, Aphrodite became Venus — and that this shows how deeply Rome was influenced by Greek culture

Know that the ancient Greeks invented theatre, performing tragedies and comedies in large open-air amphitheatres with actors wearing masks — and that plays were performed as part of religious festivals honouring the god Dionysus, with audiences of thousands

Know that Romans watched gladiators fight in huge arenas like the Colosseum in Rome, that gladiators were usually enslaved people or prisoners trained to fight, and that the city of Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, preserving an extraordinary snapshot of Roman daily life

Describe the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae as moments when Greek city-states united against the invading Persian Empire — the runner Pheidippides bringing news of victory at Marathon (origin of the marathon race), and the heroic stand of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae — and understand these wars were fought to defend Greek independence

Tell the story of Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe, who led a fierce revolt against Roman rule in Britain — burning Colchester, London, and St Albans — before her army was defeated, and understand her significance as a symbol of resistance against a powerful empire

Evaluate the lasting contributions of Greek and Roman civilisations to modern life — democracy, law, language (Latin roots), architecture (columns, arches, domes), sport (Olympics), philosophy, literature, and theatre — and understand that Greek ideas reached us through Rome, and then through later European civilisations, in a chain of cultural transmission

Understand that historians and archaeologists piece together ancient Greek and Roman life from evidence — pottery paintings, coins, inscriptions, ruins like Pompeii, and written texts by authors such as Homer and Pliny — and that the same evidence can be interpreted in different ways by different historians

Understand that Roman law became the basis for legal systems across Europe and beyond, that Latin is the root of French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian and gave English hundreds of words (e.g. exit, video, annual, education), and that Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, eventually becoming its official religion under Emperor Constantine

Explain how Rome was first governed as a republic — with elected consuls, a powerful Senate, and a distinction between patricians and plebeians — before becoming an empire ruled by emperors like Augustus (who brought peace, the Pax Romana) and Nero, and compare republican government with Athenian direct democracy

Identify Greek column styles — Doric (plain and sturdy), Ionic (scroll-shaped capitals), and Corinthian (ornate leafy capitals) — and Roman architectural innovations — the arch, the dome, and concrete — and spot their influence in modern public buildings such as courthouses, museums, government buildings, and monuments

Describe how Alexander the Great of Macedon conquered a vast empire stretching from Greece to Egypt to India, spreading Greek language, culture, and ideas across the ancient world — creating a period known as the Hellenistic Age where Greek and Eastern cultures blended

Describe how the Western Roman Empire gradually declined due to a combination of factors — military pressure from invading peoples, political instability, economic problems, and an overstretched empire — and finally fell in AD 476, while the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire continued for nearly a thousand more years

Know that Greek thinkers called philosophers developed ways of understanding the world that still influence us today — Socrates asked challenging questions to test ideas (the Socratic method), Plato imagined the ideal society, Aristotle observed and classified the natural world — and that Hippocrates is called the father of medicine for insisting on natural causes of illness rather than blaming the gods

Examine the lives of people usually left out of the Greek and Roman story — enslaved people who made up roughly 30% of Athens and powered Rome's economy, women whose lives varied dramatically between Athens (largely confined to the home) and Sparta (physical training, property ownership), and conquered peoples across both empires — and evaluate whose voices are missing from the historical record and why

Explore how Heinrich Schliemann's excavation at Hisarlik in modern Turkey raised questions about whether the Trojan War described in Homer's Iliad was historical, partly historical, or entirely mythical — understanding that archaeology and literary sources can support or contradict each other, and that the line between myth and history in the ancient world is often blurred

Analyse who was included and excluded from Athenian democracy — only free adult male citizens (roughly 30% of adults) could participate, while women, enslaved people (who may have made up a third of the population), and foreign residents (metics) were excluded — and evaluate whether Athens truly deserves the title 'birthplace of democracy' by comparing it with modern representative democracies

Trace how Roman political violence — the murder of the Gracchi brothers, civil wars between Marius and Sulla, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon and assassination on the Ides of March, and the final war between Octavian and Antony — destroyed the Republic and led to one-man rule under Augustus, and debate whether the fall of the Republic was inevitable or a series of choices

Understand that everything we know about the past comes from evidence — objects, buildings, pictures, documents, and stories that have survived

Know and use the vocabulary of historical thinking — source, evidence, primary source, secondary source, artefact, chronology, chronological order, BC/BCE, AD/CE, century, decade, era, period, timeline, excavation, archaeologist, interpretation, corroborate, bias, perspective — and apply these terms when discussing how we know about the past and how reliable our knowledge is

Recognise that different people can give different accounts of the same event — and that both can be genuine while still disagreeing

Corroborate: check whether multiple sources agree on the same facts — and investigate why they might not

Before trusting a historical source, ask: who made this, when, and why? — the answers shape how much weight the source should carry

Understand that people in the past saw the world very differently from us — judge their actions by the context they lived in, not only by today's values

Distinguish between historical evidence and historical interpretation — evidence is what survived, interpretation is the argument a historian builds from it, and the same evidence can support different arguments

What a castle is: a fortified building used as both a home and a defence; key parts including towers, moat, drawbridge, and thick walls; why castles were built

Daily life for ordinary people in a medieval village: thatched houses, farming, baking bread, fetching water; how different life was from today

What medieval kings and queens did: ruling the land, making laws, collecting taxes; the crown and throne as symbols of power; the Tower of London

What knights were: trained warriors who served a lord; armour, shields, swords, and lances; the code of chivalry as rules for how knights should behave

Who the Vikings were: seafaring warriors and traders from Scandinavia; longships; Viking raids on Britain; that Vikings also settled and farmed

The legends of Robin Hood (Sherwood Forest, stealing from the rich, Merry Men) and King Arthur (Round Table, Excalibur, Camelot); that these are stories, not proven history, but reflect medieval values

What people wore in medieval times: peasant clothes (wool, linen) vs noble clothes (silk, fur, bright colours); no zippers or buttons; how clothes showed your place in society

What people ate in medieval times: bread and pottage for ordinary people, grand feasts for the rich; no forks, eating with hands; the great hall as the centre of castle life

The events of 1066: the death of Edward the Confessor, three claimants to the throne, the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror, and the Bayeux Tapestry as a historical source

How medieval society was organised: king at the top, then lords, then knights, then peasants/serfs; who owed what to whom; the pyramid of power and mutual obligations

The enormous power of the medieval Church: monasteries and the daily life of monks and nuns; building great cathedrals; pilgrimage as a religious journey; the Church's influence over everyday life

A simplified account of the Crusades: why Europeans travelled to the Holy Land, what they found there, the cultural exchange between Christian Europe and the Islamic world

How castles were built and evolved: from wooden motte-and-bailey to stone keeps to concentric castles; rooms and their uses; how castle design responded to new attack methods

Who the Anglo-Saxons were: Germanic peoples who settled in Britain after the Romans left; their kingdoms, villages, place names, art, and eventual conversion to Christianity

How castles were attacked and defended: siege weapons (trebuchets, battering rams, siege towers), boiling liquids, arrow slits, murder holes; the drama of a medieval siege

The Black Death of 1348-49: what the plague was, how it spread, its devastating death toll; how it changed society by giving surviving workers more power and higher wages

The conflict between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons for control of England: Viking raids, Alfred the Great's resistance, the Danelaw, Athelstan as first king of all England, Edward the Confessor

What the Middle Ages gave us: Parliament, universities, common law, Gothic architecture, the English language (Anglo-Saxon + Norman French), place names, surnames; why we are still fascinated by the medieval world

The medieval world beyond Europe: the Islamic Golden Age (maths, medicine, architecture), the Mali Empire and Mansa Musa, Song Dynasty China; how the medieval world was connected through trade routes like the Silk Road

The invention of the printing press by Gutenberg and its arrival in England with William Caxton; how printed books changed everything; the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

Medieval cultural achievements: illuminated manuscripts, Gothic cathedrals (flying buttresses, stained glass), Gregorian chant, the Bayeux Tapestry; art and architecture as expressions of faith and power

King John, the barons' revolt, and the sealing of the Magna Carta in 1215; what the Magna Carta said about limiting the king's power; its lasting importance for democracy and rights

The growth of medieval towns: markets, guilds, the merchant class; how towns won charters of self-governance; the shift from purely rural to partly urban life

How justice worked in medieval times: trial by ordeal, trial by combat, the role of the sheriff; punishments including stocks, pillory, and dungeons; how different it was from modern justice

The lives of medieval women: noblewomen managing estates, peasant women's hard daily work, nuns and abbesses, notable figures like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc