Animals, including humans (KS1 – KS2)
Animals, including humans, is one of the most hands-on strands in the primary science curriculum. It starts with naming animals and body parts in Year 1 and finishes with the circulatory system in Year 6, building year on year. Here’s what the curriculum expects at each stage, and where to find lessons and resources to teach it.
What children learn about animals, including humans, at KS1 and KS2
What the national curriculum expects
“Animals, including humans” appears in every year group from Year 1 to Year 6. In Year 1 pupils identify and name common animals, group them as carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, compare their structure, and label the human body and its senses. Year 2 covers offspring growing into adults, the basic needs of animals for survival, and the importance of exercise, nutrition and hygiene. Year 3 introduces nutrition and skeletons and muscles. Year 4 covers the digestive system, teeth, and food chains. Year 5 covers the changes as humans develop to old age. Year 6 covers the circulatory system, the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle, and how nutrients and water are transported in the body.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across animal life and human biology, progressing year on year:
Naming and grouping animals
Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and carnivores, herbivores and omnivores
The human body and senses
Naming the parts of the body, and the sense linked to each
Basic needs and survival
What animals and humans need to survive, and how to stay healthy
Growth and life cycles
How offspring grow into adults, and how humans change to old age
Skeletons and muscles
How they support, protect and move the body
Nutrition
Why animals can't make their own food, and what a good diet provides
The digestive system
Teeth, digestion, and how the body breaks down food
The circulatory system
The heart, blood vessels and blood, and how lifestyle affects them
Where this topic sits within KS1 and KS2
Animals, including humans, isn’t a single unit taught once. It appears in every year group from Year 1 to Year 6, with each year adding new depth rather than repeating what came before.
How to access this topic
Animals, including humans don’t sit on their own in the curriculum. The Cornerstones science curriculum is fully sequenced from EYFS through Year 1 to Year 6, so you can see what comes before, what follows and how the whole picture fits together. We’ve done the thinking, so your planning time goes into teaching, not sequencing.
Full curriculum
Subject curriculum
Quick Teach Individual lessons and resources for supplementing what you already teach.
Ready to bring the wider curriculum to life?
See how the full Cornerstones Science Curriculum sequences topics like this one across every year group.