T1 Exercises

The following exercises/ideas are focused on pupils' understanding of the mechanics of time- their understanding of dating conventions, time vocabulary; how time "works", and the various ways of describing amounts and periods of time.

1. A short (crude?) pencil and paper test focused on pupils' understanding of dating systems, centuries, and some (basic?) time vocabulary. The test was trialled on approximately 1,000 year 7 pupils. Not all of them knew what century they were living in, and what terms such as "reign" and "A.D." meant. Given that pupils have varying experiences of history at primary school, it might be of use as a quick way of finding out where they are up to in terms of their grasp of time conventions and vocabulary.

2. Sorting exercise 24 boxes which pupils have to sort into different categories (dates, events, weapons, transport,), and then place in chronological order. Aimed at KS2/3 pupils. (This is a pdf file; not accessible without Adobe Acrobat Reader Software)

3.Chunks of TimeA very basic exercise for younger pupils to see if they are aware of the duration of various time terms

4.Understanding A.D. and B.C.A basic sequencing exercise to see if pupils can correctly order 12 events spanning B.C. and A.D.

5.B.C. and A.D. vocabularyTo see to what extent pupils can accurately place time terms on a B.C.-A.D. continuum

6.Who invented the B.C./A.D. system and when?Basic information sheet on Dionysus Exiguus

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