NSW Early Stage 1 HSIE: Personal and Family Histories

NSW Early Stage 1 HSIE: Teaching Personal and Family Histories

For Kindergarten teachers in a NSW primary school, Personal and Family Histories is usually the first formal History teaching young students will encounter. Sitting in the Early Stage 1 strand of the NSW K-6 HSIE Syllabus, the unit is built around the simplest and most powerful idea in primary History: every child has a past, every family has stories, and even five-year-olds can begin asking what has changed and what has stayed the same across generations.

This guide is for Early Stage 1 (Kindergarten) teachers planning the unit fresh, returning to it after a few years of teaching other stages, or hunting for ready-made teacher resources that align with the NSW Department of Education's sample Scope and Sequence — where the unit usually anchors Term 1 or Term 3 of the Foundation year.

What the Personal and Family Histories unit covers

The NSW K-6 HSIE Syllabus places Personal and Family Histories at Early Stage 1, where the focus stays close to the child's own past and immediate family. Across the unit, Kindergarten students are invited to:

• Tell their own personal history — birthdays, milestones, favourite early memories, and growth from baby to school-starter.
• Talk about family — who lives in their household, extended family connections, family traditions, and special days.
• Explore "then and now" — comparing toys, clothes, transport, school routines, or playgrounds from when their parents and grandparents were children.
• Use simple historical sources — photographs, family objects, drawings, and stories told by adults in the family.
• Build basic chronology — sequencing events in their own life and understanding language like "before I was born", "when I was a baby", and "now".

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives are embedded throughout. The unit is one of the most natural places in the Foundation year to teach connection to Country, family and kinship, and the oldest continuous histories on this continent — through First Nations storybooks, songs, and contemporary voices.

How the unit fits the NSW K-6 HSIE Syllabus

The K-6 HSIE Syllabus organises History across four stages: Early Stage 1, Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3. At Early Stage 1, the focus is intentionally personal — students draw on their own experience to begin understanding what the past is and how we know about it. The skills introduced here form the foundation for the Stage 1 Connections to People and Places unit, where students extend beyond their family to local-area history.

Two key inquiry questions anchor the Early Stage 1 work:

• Who am I and where do I come from? — students introduce themselves through family photos, baby pictures, and personal artefacts.
• What is the same and what has changed? — students compare an object, routine, or experience from a parent's or grandparent's childhood with their own.

The NSW Syllabus is clear that Early Stage 1 students should not yet be working with abstract historical periods, written sources, or formal source analysis. The unit stays personal, concrete, and oral throughout.

A practical teaching sequence

Most NSW Kindergarten teachers run the Personal and Family Histories unit across six to eight weeks, integrating it tightly with English oral language, Creative Arts, and the broader HSIE Geography teaching resources program at the early-primary level. A workable sequence:

1. All About Me (week 1-2) — students bring a baby photo and a favourite object, introduce themselves to the class, and create a simple "All About Me" page or wall display.
2. My Family (week 2-3) — family portraits, drawing or labelling family members, and oral introductions of who lives at home and who is part of the wider family.
3. My Story So Far (week 3-4) — simple personal timelines: birth, first steps, starting preschool, starting Kindergarten. Photos are arranged in order with a verbal retell to a partner.
4. Then and Now (week 4-6) — guided comparisons. Bring in an old toy, a black-and-white school photo, or invite a grandparent to share what school was like when they were five. Students draw and discuss what is the same and what is different.
5. Special Days and Traditions (week 6-7) — birthdays, family celebrations, cultural festivals, and days of significance for the families in your class.
6. Sharing Day (week 7-8) — students present a simple finished artefact: a family timeline, "All About Me" book, or family photo display. Assess against the syllabus outcomes.

Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories well

The K-6 HSIE Syllabus and the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priorities both expect First Nations perspectives to be embedded across the year — not isolated to NAIDOC Week. At Early Stage 1, teachers can:

• Open History lessons with an Acknowledgement of Country, helping students learn the name of the local Aboriginal Country and Traditional Custodians.
• Use storybooks by First Nations authors (Bronwyn Bancroft, Gregg Dreise, Sally Morgan) when teaching family, home, and place.
• Talk about the long and continuous history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in Australia, with age-appropriate language about kinship and connection.
• Where possible, involve a local Aboriginal Education Officer, Elder, or family member in the unit.

For broader resources across the early years of NSW HSIE, see the Stage 1 HSIE resources hub and our NAIDOC Week activities guide for First Nations content that connects naturally to family and community history. The carousels below pull together teacher-created Early Stage 1 history resources — many bundle family interview templates, "All About Me" books, "Then and Now" sorting cards, and family-tree printables into a single classroom-ready package.