Intent

Our History curriculum has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum states that ‘a high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past.’ To ensure that pupils develop a secure knowledge that they can build on, our History curriculum is organised into a progression model that outlines the skills, knowledge and vocabulary to be taught in a sequentially coherent way. Chronological Understanding; Historical Understanding; Historical Enquiry; Interpretations of History; Organisation and Communication are all mapped out to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge. The long term plan has therefore been developed starting with topics within living memory in Early years and KS1 whilst progressing further back in history as the children move through KS2.

Implementation

History is taught in blocks throughout the year, so that children achieve depth in their learning. Teachers have identified the key knowledge and skills of each topic and consideration has been given to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group across the school. By the end of year 6, children will have a chronological understanding of British history starting in Year 1 with themselves travelling back to the stone age. All learning will start by revisiting prior knowledge. This will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. Staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. Our historians will be given a variety of experiences both in and out of the classroom where appropriate to create memorable learning opportunities and to further support and develop their understanding. There is a focus on embedding and developing enquiry based thinking skills through using a ‘big question’ as the overarching theme for each unit which has been subsequently split into smaller enquiry based questions which provide the focus for each lesson. Topic boxes have also been created to support enquiry within the classroom through the exploration of artefacts and sources linked to each topic. Children are encouraged to ask and answer questions about the contents of the topic boxes to help them to gain further knowledge and understanding. Children are assessed formatively and summatively throughout history topics. This is recorded on a front cover sheet in the children's books for each unit. 

Impact

Through the high quality first teaching of History taking place we will see the impact of the subject in different ways. Through pupil voice children will be able to talk about the skills and knowledge they have acquired. Children will be engaged in History lessons and want to find out more. Children will complete research independently through projects and homework and to further their own enjoyment about the subject or topic.

Work will show that a range of topics is being covered, cross curricular links are made where possible and differentiated work set as appropriate. The school environment will be history rich through displays, resources, vocabulary etc. As historians, children will learn lessons from history to influence the decisions they make in their lives in the future. Assessments and monitoring will show standards in History will be high and will match standards in other subject areas.

Pupil voice carried out across this academic year shows that pupils are confident and able to talk about what they have learnt in history using subject specific vocabulary. Pupil voice also demonstrates that pupils enjoy history and are able to recall their learning over time. The standard and quality of homework projects for each topic show the commitment and dedication towards history. The children were able to present their work and were proud to share the knowledge and understanding they had gained.