'I was meant to have been born on my birthday, but I arrived a day late': young children and chronology

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

"How did you stop yourself from getting the plague?"

This quotation from a child signals some of the challenges of teaching children about chronology in the primary school. Learning about chronology involves:

• Knowing the conventions of recording the passage of time
• Providing experiences to develop children's sense of duration
• Opportunities to develop sequencing skills
• Being able to move about with confidence between different periods of time

They are all features of successful learning in history...