The digestive system (KS2)
The digestive system is one of the more hands-on human biology topics in KS2 science: teeth, digestion, and how the body breaks down food. It’s a Year 4 topic that gives children their first proper look inside the human body. Here’s what the curriculum expects, and where to find lessons and resources to teach it.
What children learn about the digestive system at KS2
What the national curriculum expects
The digestive system is taught in Year 4, as part of “Animals, including humans.” Pupils should learn to describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans, and to identify the different types of human teeth and their simple functions. The same Year 4 strand also covers food chains, which is why the two topics often sit together in a school’s planning.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across the parts of the digestive system and how it works:
What the digestive system does
How the body breaks down food, from mouth to intestine
Parts of the digestive system
Mouth, oesophagus, stomach, and small and large intestine
Types of teeth
Incisors, canines, premolars and molars, and what each one does
Teeth and digestion
How teeth begin the process of breaking down food
Dental hygiene
What damages teeth, and how to look after them
Comparing diets
Comparing the teeth of carnivores and herbivores
Nutrition
Why the body needs food, and what it takes from it
Food chains and energy
Where food comes from before it reaches the plate
Where this topic sits within KS2
The digestive system is taught in Year 4, within the “Animals, including humans” strand. It builds on nutrition and skeletons from Year 3, and comes before the circulatory system in Year 6.
How to access this topic
The digestive system doesn’t sit on its 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.