My Top Resources for teaching... Ancient Greece
If it's all Greek to you, read on for some resources to help you with planning and delivering this unit.
Ancient Greece is a fascinating area of history however it can be quite an overwhelming topic to study at primary level as the scope is huge. Which period do you cover: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic? Which cities should you focus on: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Mycenae? And then there’s the question of which aspects of Ancient Greek civilisation to study (there are lots). There’s the Olympics, democracy, warfare, theatre, temples, mythology… Basically, it’s easy to get bogged down and try to cover lots of different things that will fundamentally lack any depth.
Let’s look at what the National Curriculum Subject Content tells us:
Not much to go on, is there?
My top tip here would be to focus on a few things in depth (for example maybe three key areas where the Greeks have left a legacy such democracy, the Olympics and architecture) rather than trying to cover everything. Aim for depth and quality over quantity. This piece aims to provide you with some resources that will help you when planning and delivering this unit.
Historical Association
Let’s start with planning. You’ve obviously looked at the Purpose of Study section from the National Curriculum but where now? The Historical Association is the place to start when looking at ideas for planning. If you’re a member, they have a scheme of work which might be a good starting point for your own planning. It’s well worth investing in a membership as an individual or for your school.
This unit covers all the aspects of Ancient Greek history and civilisation I would expect to see when looking at this topic. What I particularly like is that this unit (and others created by the HA) include examples of enquiry questions. There is a really clear structured approach which follows a narrative. You will probably want to adapt some aspects for your own school and pupils but the essentials are there.
https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/6791/scheme-of-work-ancient-greece
Oak National Academy
The Oak National Academy was such a useful site during lockdown and many of the resources are still available. You can watch videos and even download powerpoints for a range of lessons for free. Obviously, I don’t recommend just downloading but there is some great information here that is useful for teacher subject knowledge. I also like that Oak Academy include vocabulary at the start of most lessons. There is an entire unit on Ancient Greece and this could be another good starting point to help when planning coverage and vocabulary.
https://classroom.thenational.academy/units/ancient-greece-79e7
The British Museum
The British Museum site has a number of resources to support with looking at artefacts. There are some classroom resources as well as resources to download if you’re planning on visiting the museum itself.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/learn/schools/ages-7-11/ancient-greece
The Beazley Archive
https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/Home
The Beazley Archive is a huge database of Greek pottery. If you want to find something for a specific area you can search the database by topic. This would be a great resource when using pottery as a primary source.
Acropolis Virtual Tour
https://www.acropolisvirtualtour.gr
This brilliant site offers a virtual tour of the temples on the Acropolis hill. Simply click on the map and you can investigate the different areas of the Acropolis complex.
An AI Tour of ancient Olympia
Possibly my favourite find from this list - this site is an absolute beauty!
https://olympiacommongrounds.gr/explore
The site offers an amazing AI tour of ancient Olympia as it would have been back in the day. You can explore the temples, sporting arenas and even take a look inside Pheidias’ workshop. The site also allows you to explore the events that took place at the ancient Olympics day by day. This is a great site as pupils will really be able to visualise what the Olympic site was like and see the original full colour version.
More ancient Olympics
While we’re looking at the subject of the Olympics, this site has been produced by the International Olympic Committee. This site is very child friendly and has lots of detail information about the different Olympic events and even individual athletes.
https://olympics.com/ioc/ancient-olympic-games
This would be really useful if you’re comparing the ancient and modern Olympics and looking at this aspect of Greece in detail.
BBC Bitesize
This is a super resource for background knowledge. Bitesize is always a good starting point for background information. There’s a bit of everything here so it’s worth checking out. You also know that it will be a reliable source of information. The animations are quite fun and there is some good basic background that pupils will easily understand.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z87tn39
DK Find Out
Another favourite of mine is DK find out. I love how you can use this site alongside the books. It’s a great secondary source for children to use; fun and interactive. I also recommend it to my pupils for homework research.
https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/history/ancient-greece/
Music
The last few resources I include here aren’t really history resources at all but could be useful for music lessons or a class assembly with songs.
This first site has a range of songs linked to different aspects of Ancient Greek life. These could be fun for a class singing lessons or as a fun way to reinforce knowledge.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/music-ks2-ancient-greece-index/zrnkjfr
Similarly, Out of the Ark have a class assembly with songs that I have used in the past and pupils have enjoyed. https://www.outoftheark.co.uk
The final resource is the BBC’s Heroes of Troy production based on the Iliad. This is a full scale production which comes complete with songs and and play script. There’s also a vocal warm-up for each song led by David Grant (remember Fame Academy?). Again, this could be used for music lessons or a class assembly but would be fantastic to stage if your learning about Ancient Greece coincided with an end year or end of term production and would also be a fairly cost effective option.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/g71t6rD97rMCqZf7qMRxqp/ks2-music-heroes-of-troy-info
