Evolution education curriculum map

Want to help your class feel ready for Evolution in Year 6 and KS3? This page shows how earlier science topics can lay the groundwork.

You’ll find practical ideas and example activities to make those connections clear.

You can read more about our approach on the Big ideas in science: Evolution landing page.

Year/Key Stage

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KS3
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3
Year 2

KS3
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3
Year 2

Prior understanding fostered through this approach

Fossils and Deep Time
Rocks and fossils preserve information about the history of life on Earth. This record isn’t perfect because it’s rare for an individual organism to fossilise.

Variation
There’s natural variation between individuals of a species.

Inheritance
When living things reproduce, they pass on a mix of their features to their offspring. Some students may have been introduced to the idea that this happens because offspring inherit a mix of their parents’ DNA.

Natural Selection
Being ‘suited’ to an environment means an organism has features that give it a better chance of surviving and reproducing.

KS3

Curriculum specification

Genetics and Evolution

Heredity is the process by which genetic information is transmitted from one generation to the next.
The variation between individuals within a species being continuous or discontinuous, to include measurement and graphical representation of variation.
The variation between species and between individuals of the same species means some organisms compete more successfully, which can drive natural selection.
Changes in the environment may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction.

Extension suggestions

Understanding evolutionary processes can help humans understand and solve problems.

Examples:

Evolution of pesticide resistance in agricultural pests and weeds.
Understanding evolutionary history can help us monitor potential zoonotic diseases (diseases transmitted from animals to humans) by identifying features shared between species.

Example activity

Ladybird genetics

Understand how genes and environmental conditions determine the colour of harlequin ladybird elytra.

Recognise that scientific theories generally explain patterns in data and can be used to make testable predictions.

Year 6

Curriculum specification

Evolution and Inheritance

Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.
Recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally, offspring vary and aren’t identical to their parents.
Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.

Extension suggestions

Offspring aren’t identical to their parents because they inherit a mix of their parents’ DNA.

Human-caused environmental changes are happening much faster than natural evolutionary processes. This will have serious consequences for life on Earth.

Year 5

Curriculum specification

Living Things and Their Habitats

Describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird.
Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.

Evolution preparation

When looking at the process of reproduction, consider introducing the idea that reproduction involves parent organisms passing on DNA to their offspring. If instructional time is tight, consider having books on this topic highlighted in the classroom or school library.

Resource

Books for introducing genetics

We've listed some books that can be used to enrich learning by giving students a gentle introduction to DNA and genetics.

Year 4

Curriculum specification

Living Things and Their Habitats

Recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways.
Explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment.
Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.

Animals, Including Humans

Construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey

Evolution preparation

Be mindful of students also understanding that there’s variation within a species. When exploring classification keys, use natural materials and have multiple examples of the same species or group. In addition to supporting evolution education, it also supports deeper skill development by encouraging students to focus on specific features rather than matching whole images or objects.

Look for opportunities to link variation identified in classification activities with the organism’s chances of survival. This can be in the context of food chains or changing environments.

Consider referring back to Year 3 Rocks and Fossils. Look for examples of fossils recording environmental change and how those changes impacted living things.

A predator is not guaranteed to catch its prey, and a protective adaptation doesn’t guarantee a prey animal won’t get eaten. Consider activities that explore chance and probability.

Example activities

Grouping and classifying ladybirds

Compare and contrast different ladybirds by grouping them, then construct and use a classification key.

Species variation game: peppered moth lucky landing

Play the lucky landing game to explore how changes in the environment affects the survival of peppered moth variations.

What happened to trilobites?

Understand that environments can change and this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.

Year 3

Curriculum specification

Plants

Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants: roots, stem/trunk, leaves and flowers.
Explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.

Rocks

Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock.

Evolution preparation

Compare parts of plants from different habitats (eg leaves in temperate forests vs leaves in deserts). This highlights that differences between species is not just because they are different species, but these differences are linked with how they survive in a habitat.

Consider comparing parts of plants from different microhabitats (eg leaves of plants in woodland in sun vs in shade). This highlights that there is variation within a species, and these differences can affect how well they survive.

Consider spending some time on how rare it is for an organism to fossilize. If making your own fossils, consider running a parallel demonstration of how quickly living things can get broken down.

Example activities and resources

Make your own fossil

Understand how fossils are formed.

Preservation vs Decomposition

Understand how fossils are formed and that fossilization requires special conditions where decomposition is slow.

Books for introducing genetics

We've listed some books that can be used to enrich learning by giving students a gentle introduction to DNA and genetics.

Year 2

Curriculum specification

Living Things and their Habitats

Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including microhabitats.
Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited.

Animals, Including Humans

Notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults.

Evolution preparation

Students often initially identify by comparing whole objects and looking for matches between objects of photographs. Progress from this by using natural objects.

Natural objects will generally have some level of variation, for example in colour or size. This builds the background experience with variation needed to understand how natural selection leads to changes in a population’s features.

Follow on from matching activities by focusing on describing key features. Build up students’ descriptive vocabulary and foster a habit for detailed observation.

Young children often have an implicit understanding of inheritance in a very broad sense (eg an offspring is a cat because its parents were cats). Build on this early understanding by pointing out that features are inherited from parents (eg hair colour and eye colour).