Year 4 History Roman Invasion Unit

This unit is designed for year 4 but could be adapted to fit into other year groups. The unit focuses on the Romans and their invasion of Britain – paying particular attention to religion, military innovation, reasons for invasion and size of the Roman Empire. Throughout this unit, children will spend time learning what an archaeologist does. They will also learn how to carry out different types of historical research; Develop their own questions to find out more about areas of Roman life; Develop their understanding of Roman and Celtic life and understand invasion and the positive/negative consequences of it. It develops the following skills and knowledge from the National Curriculum:

1. To know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; achievements and follies of mankind
2. To gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’ and ‘civilisation’
3. Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.
4. Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
5. Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Lesson 1: A Chronology lesson which uses photographic evidence to give the children a deeper understanding of how and why different periods/peoples in time were so different. Children make links between different time periods as they start to use the language of chronology.

Lesson 2: Children take the role of Archaeologists to better understand the uses of different Roman artefacts.

Lesson 3: A practical activity which gives the children a deeper understanding of the ‘Roman invasion’ of Britain.

Lesson 4: Children gain a better understanding of the size and geography of the Roman Empire.

Lesson 5: Children create their own questions to gain further understanding of the reasons why the Romans wanted to invade Britain.

Lesson 6/7. A research activity where the children are given the opportunity to discover more about the Roman and (British) Celt’s way of life.

Within this unit plan there are hyperlinks to other resources associated with the plan.