Numbers Through Time

The chronological unit is new and challenging for primary schools and it is important to tackle it correctly. Whether you decide to take the option of a broad sweep of time as this unit does, or whether you decide to home in on a specific turning point (examples of these units will follow) you should enable students to make links across time to what they have already learned, so for example, if you are studying the Industrial Revolution as a turning point, you might make links to other turning points up to 1066 or from European/world study that students have learnt about previously.

This is a challenging and rigorous, fun unit that will complement work carried out in Maths, but allows students to make links back into periods they have already studied, as well as carrying the chronology forward. In this unit, students will gain an understanding of the history of number and its importance to past societies as well as how those societies have helped to shape the development of number and mathematics. Through this history unit, designed to complement the mathematics curriculum, students will develop their understanding of the inter-connections between mathematics and history. The unit is not exhaustive and due to the limits of time, not all developments and contributions have been fully traced, but teachers can insert these if they wish.

This unit is structured around 2 history enquiries. These can either be combined or each is deliverable as a standalone unit:

1. How important have numbers been over time?
2. How can numbers reveal and reflect changes in our lives?

Please note: While this unit contains resource suggestions, it is not a fully resourced scheme of work, and the resources it refers to may in some cases only be available to full members of the HA. The majority of the HA schemes of work were produced between 2014-2019 by members of the HA primary committee and its affiliates. These schemes of work are designed to support your planning and should be moulded and adapted to fit the context and needs of your own school.  To view a free sample scheme of work, please refer to our Anglo-Saxons unit. We regularly check the hyperlinks included in the schemes but unfortunately every now and again some links may go out of date. If you spot a broken link, please let us know on enquiries@history.org.uk.