History

The National Curriculum describes a high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past as well as an awareness of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past as well as thinking about how history has impacted the present. Teaching should provide pupils with the necessary skills to ask questions, think critically, analyse evidence and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Aims:

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world;

• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind;

• Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’;

• Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses;

• Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed;

• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts: understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Intent:

At Temple Grove, we aim for a high-quality history curriculum which should inspire in children a curiosity about Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Children will recognise and understand significant historical events as well as ancient civilisations. Children will learn about the lives of prominent individuals of the past and, in doing so, will understand the methods of historical enquiry and be able to ask and answer a variety of skills and knowledge-based questions. Children will gain further knowledge and skills, through other experiences, such as educational visits and visitors to school. These help facilitate a deep understanding of who and what has shaped our world today.

Implementation:

• To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in history, we link learning across all subjects so that there are clear commonalities and big ideas can be thoroughly embedded;

• The International Primary Curriculum is a scheme available to teachers to enable them to deliver balanced coverage of topics and themes across key stages, providing teachers with creative ideas and activities;

• History is taught on a termly basis, focusing on the knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. It is taught as a discretely but links are always made to learning in other subjects;

• Each classroom is home to a display reflecting one of the humanities units of work across a term. This will be part working wall – showing key vocabulary – and part celebration of pupils’ best work;

• Extended writing is expected and should be purposeful; the quality of this writing should be the same as in English books;

• At Temple Grove, we appreciate the importance of local visits, trips and outdoor learning. This supports children’s understanding of history and helps them to make further connections and experiences should be reflected in their written work.

• At Temple Grove we recognise that visitors, local visits, trips and outdoor learning support children’s understanding and help them to make connections, thus bringing history to life;

• Children explore topics in our well-resourced library of books and research online in our ICT suite to gather evidence from a range of sources to further support their learning.

Impact:

• Children at Temple Grove are passionate about history and enjoy learning about people and their lives. They speak confidently and in detail about periods in history and historical figures;

• Outcomes in humanities books evidence a broad and balanced history curriculum and demonstrate that children understand key information and big ideas;

• Children’s vocabulary is continually being expanded and embedded, giving them more confidence to tackle new ideas and dig deeper;

• Children’s writing is purposeful and is of a standard similar to that of the work in their English books;

• Our children are curious, like to ask questions and empathise with people from different faiths and cultures.