Resources and ideas about children's understanding of Time

Understanding Time and Chronology

(Why it is an important part of school history)

"Chronology provides a mental framework or map which gives significance and coherence to the study of history."

(Para 3:18 of the Final Report of the History National Curriculum Working Group, 1990)

"Without a grasp of the concept of time, there can be no real understanding of change, development, continuity, progression, and regression…. If development/change are to be properly understood, there must be some idea of the order in which things happened"

(Tim Lomas, Teaching and Assessing Historical Understanding, 1993:p. 20)

"The ability to sequence is a fundamental feature of historical understanding. The past is chaos to pupils, until sequenced."

(Sydney Wood, ‘Developing an understanding of time-sequencing issues’, Teaching History 79:p.11-14)

"Totally filleted of chronology, history becomes an amusing but rather pointless preoccupation. A project on hats through the ages may look pretty, but loses its point if through the ages are meaningless."

(Martin Ballard, New Movements in the Study and Teaching of History, 1970, p. 7)

Time is one of the central mechanisms which history has for organising information, and establishing how elements of the past are related to each other. The history teacher (and the historian) often needs to ask "When did this happen? What is its relation to the present day? Where does it fit in with other things in the past? How does it relate to the present and the future?"

This is also a controversial area of school history. What should pupils be expected to know about time and chronology from the study of history in school? How can pupils’ knowledge and understanding of time be developed?

This site attempts to give information and suggestions which will help to develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding of time and chronology

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