A complete Year 6 History unit on the British Empire, designed around enquiry-based learning so that pupils build historical knowledge through questioning, evidence, interpretation and discussion rather than simply being given information.

The unit explores the British Empire from its growth through to its decline and lasting legacy. Pupils consider why Britain built an empire, how it gained control, what life was like for different people living under British rule, Britain’s involvement in slavery and exploitation, resistance across the Empire, decolonisation, migration and how the Empire is remembered today.

The lessons deliberately present pupils with different perspectives and interpretations, encouraging them to make evidence-based historical judgements rather than reducing the Empire to a simple positive/negative narrative.

The unit includes:

Lesson 1: What is an empire and why do countries build them?
Lesson 2: How and why did the British Empire grow?
Lesson 3: What was life like for different people living under British rule?
Lesson 4: How did slavery and exploitation contribute to Britain’s Empire?
Lesson 5: Why did people resist British rule? – including Gandhi and India, Benin, and Sam Sharpe’s rebellion in Jamaica
Lesson 6: How is the legacy of Empire visible in our local area?
Lesson 7: Why did the British Empire decline and end?
Lesson 8: How should Britain remember the British Empire?

Resources include differentiated activities, historical sources, images, enquiry questions, sentence stems, vocabulary, discussion tasks and opportunities for extended historical judgement.

Important note about Lesson 6:
Lesson 6 is specifically written for Enfield, London and explores how the legacy of the British Empire can be seen in Enfield today, particularly through migration, the Commonwealth and the development of the local community. Anyone downloading this resource outside Enfield will need to adapt Lesson 6 for their own locality. The lesson structure and enquiry approach can be retained, but the local examples, photographs, migration links and place-specific information should be replaced with evidence relevant to your own area.

Suitable for Year 6 / Upper KS2 and particularly useful for schools looking for a more balanced, challenging and genuinely enquiry-led approach to teaching the British Empire.