National curriculum content

• Carry out a study of history that extends beyond 1066
• Ask perceptive questions
• Develop perspective and judgement
• Explain that the ways we communicate have changed over time
• Realise changes in how we communicate can have negative as well as positive impacts
• Explain why you think one change is more important than others

Lesson objectives

1. To understand what we can learn about the Stone Age from cave paintings.
2. To explore how the development in writing was used in the first stages of communication.
3. To understand how the invention of the printing press advanced how we communicate through books and newspapers.
4. To understand the development of the telephone over time.
5. To understand how developments in technology has changed the way we communicate.
6. To explore the changes in communication, and decide which has changed our life the most in the 21st Century.

What we want children to know

• Understand that the ways we communicate have changed over time, and some have a greater impact than others
• Sequence these changes and understand how they build on previous changes
• Explain whether one change in how we communicate is more important than others
• Understand there are different answers to the question ‘What was the most important change over 10,000 years?’

What skills we want children to develop

• Create a ‘bigger picture’ of history – seeing how things fit together over a long time span
• Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections
• Reach conclusions based on the evidence
• Decide how to present findings effectively
   

Vocabulary

• Beacon

• Illuminated letter
• Millennium
• Oral tradition
• Replica
• Printing press
• Psalter
• Saga
• Social media
• Texting
• Tweeting
• World Wide Web