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Year 4 · After the Romans: Anglo-Saxons and Scots

What changed and what stayed the same?

Note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms

25 minutes4 checks6 exit questionsNational curriculum objective

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms

Key learning points

  • • Change and continuity together
  • • Sorting your evidence
  • • How big was the change?
  • • Using the right words

This lesson at a glance

  • 25 minutes
  • 19 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • No marked quiz yet
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

connectionscontraststrendsappropriatehistorical

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 19 · Intro5%
1

Introduction

Part 1 of 19

What changed and what stayed the same? illustrationArchive-led lesson

Historical enquiry

What changed and what stayed the same?

Historians do not only ask what happened. They ask what changed, what carried on, and whether the change was big or small.

In a nutshell

Note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 19

Before we start

What you already know

You know who settled in Britain after Roman rule ended.

Recap: y4-history-3
3

Key words

Part 3 of 19

Key words

Words you'll need today

change
Something becoming different.
continuity
Something staying the same.
evidence
Information that helps you prove an answer.
trend
A change that keeps going the same way over time.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 19

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Two questions, not one

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 19

Learn

Change and continuity together

After AD 410 the big Roman towns emptied and stone buildings fell down. That is change. But people still farmed the same fields, used the same rivers and walked the same Roman roads. That is continuity. Both are true at once, and good history says so.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 19

Learn

Sorting your evidence

Try two columns. Changed: language, kings, gods, buildings made of wood not stone, no coins for a while. Stayed the same: farming, fields, roads, rivers, most of the food people ate. Filling in both columns stops you from telling only half the story.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 19

Quick check

Continuity means...

8

Quick check

Part 8 of 19

Quick check

Which is an example of continuity after AD 410?

9

Reset break

Part 9 of 19

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 19

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Judging how big a change was

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 19

Learn

How big was the change?

Not all changes matter equally. Losing bath houses changed daily comfort for a few. Losing writing and coins changed how everyone traded and remembered. Historians rank changes by how many people they affected and how long they lasted.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 19

Learn

Using the right words

Words are tools. 'Invasion' means an army arriving to conquer; 'migration' means people moving to live. 'Settlement' is where they made homes. Using the exact word makes your writing sharper, and using the wrong one changes the meaning of your answer.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 19

Quick check

Which change affected the most people?

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 19

Quick check

Which word fits people moving to live somewhere?

15

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 19

Evidence 1 of 1

map

Roman roads still on the map

Ordnance Survey and earlier surveyors, Roman roads, modern maps

Long, unusually straight sections of modern road that follow routes first laid out by the Roman army.

Maps are evidence too. Straight stretches surviving today show continuity — people kept using what Rome built for centuries after Rome had gone.

Think like a historian

Find a suspiciously straight road near you. Is a straight road always Roman? How would you check?

Source: Ordnance Survey mapping

View the archive record ↗
16

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 19

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Thinking everything changed in AD 410. Much of daily life carried on.
  • Treating every change as equally important.
  • Using 'invasion' for what was mostly slow migration.
17

Challenge round

Part 17 of 19

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

18

Mastery quiz

Part 18 of 19

No quiz for this one

This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.

19

Lesson round-up

Part 19 of 19

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Source

A factory inspector's notebook, 1842

"I visited the mill at seven in the morning. The machines were already running. I counted fourteen children at the frames, the youngest no more than nine years of age. The overseer told me they work from six until seven, with forty minutes for dinner."

"The air is thick with cotton dust and the windows are kept shut so the thread does not break. Two of the children showed me hands cut by the shuttles. The owner assured me that the work is light and that the families beg him for the places, since without the children's wages the rent cannot be paid."

"I have written to the magistrates. I doubt much will follow from it."

Original source-style text written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Who wrote this, when, and why might that make it useful to a historian?
  2. What does the source tell you about children's work — and what does it not tell you?
  3. How far does this source show that mill owners were to blame? Answer with a judgement and evidence.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Roman roads still on the map

map

Ordnance Survey and earlier surveyors, Roman roads, modern maps

Long, unusually straight sections of modern road that follow routes first laid out by the Roman army.

Maps are evidence too. Straight stretches surviving today show continuity — people kept using what Rome built for centuries after Rome had gone.

Source: Ordnance Survey mapping

View the original record ↗

  • Source work

    Reading

    Read the source closely. Write who made it, when, and what it tells you — then what it does not tell you.

    2 paragraphs

  • Essay answer

    Writing

    Answer the enquiry question with a clear judgement. Use two pieces of evidence and finish with a sentence that weighs them up.

    300–400 words

  • Timeline

    Diagram

    Draw a timeline of the events in this lesson with dates, then photograph it.

    6–8 events

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 19 · Introduction

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