How have children's lives changed?

Examining how children's lives have changed over time by investigating leisure, health and work in the past.

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  1. Subjects >
  2. History >
  3. Key stage 2 >
  4. Year 4 >
  5. How have children’s lives changed?

Please note

This unit has been updated for 2024/25 to include new teaching resources designed to enrich children’s learning and deepen their understanding of the topic.

Unit outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

  • Make inferences and deductions from primary and secondary sources.
  • Explain why children needed to work.
  • Identify the jobs Tudor and Victorian children had.
  • Describe the working conditions of Tudor and Victorian children.
  • Identify how Lord Shaftesbury changed the lives of children and evaluate the impact of his work.
  • Use sources to identify leisure activities and compare them over time.
  • Identify diseases past children suffered from and discuss how effective the treatments were.

Suggested prior learning

What was important to ancient Egyptians?

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Lessons

Lesson 1: What do sources tell us about how children’s lives have changed?

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Lesson 2: Why did Tudor children work and what was it like?

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Lesson 3: What were children’s jobs like in Victorian England?

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Lesson 4: How did Lord Shaftesbury help to change the lives of children?

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Lesson 5: How and why has children’s leisure time changed?

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Lesson 6: What were the diseases children caught and how were they treated?

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Optional lesson

Optional Remembrance lesson: How can we remember the children who were affected by war?

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Key skills

  • Understanding that history is
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Key knowledge

  • To know that the
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Key vocabulary

apprentice

childhood

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Related content

    Resources

Unit resources

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History

Knowledge organiser – History Y4: How have children’s lives changed?

Aimed at pupils, two pages providing key facts and definitions from the unit 'How have children's lives changed?'.

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History

Vocabulary display – History Y4: How have children’s lives changed?

A display version of the key vocabulary from the 'How have children's lives changed?' unit.

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Subject resources

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Cross-curricular opportunities

English: Spoken language, Reading comprehension

Science: Working scientifically

Build on the learning

British history 3: What changed in Britain after the Anglo-Saxon invasion?

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