All Saints CE Primary School History Curriculum

Intent

At All Saints, we provide a high-quality History curriculum which aims to inspire children’s curiosity and promote awe and wonder about their own history, the history of the locality they live in, Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about how Britain has influenced and been influenced by historical events, a sound understanding of chronology and how their own lives have been affected by the happenings of the past. We aim to encourage our children to think like historians. By doing this we make History relevant and purposeful. We want our children to have a better understanding of the world as it is through the study of what has gone before. We encourage our children to develop a critical mind and disciplinary thinking by exploring the past from differing perspectives. Through History, we aim to enable them to become successful in life with high aspirations as members of society and as global, socially responsible citizens.

Implementation

The curriculum is ordered chronologically. A focus on sequence, time and chronology helps our children develop a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people and how these relate to each other. History is taught as a main driver subject in Autumn and Summer terms from Year 1 to Year 6. Through a cross- curricular approach, History is taught alongside strong, carefully chosen related class texts that support reading, writing, PSHE and Art. Planned substantive and disciplinary knowledge is carefully considered and revisited to support retention of knowledge alongside skills that enable them to come to their own conclusions. Lessons include opportunities to question evidence and sources, debate, question, provide and change opinions, infer, deduce, build arguments with emphasis on recurring themes: power and control, migration, legacy. Each class has access to an individual and a class timeline, which is visited and re-visited across the year to ensure the children deepen their chronological understanding. 

In EYFS History is taught as an integral part of the topic work through child-initiated and adult led activities. The children are given the opportunity to find out about past and present events in their own lives, and those of their families and other people they know. They look at pictures of famous people in history and discover the meaning of new and old in relation to their own lives.

In Key Stage 1 Children learn about people’s lives and lifestyles. They find out about significant men, women, children and events from the recent and more distant past in Britain and the wider world. They listen, and respond to stories and use sources of information to help them ask and answer questions. They learn how the past is different from the present.

In Key Stage 2 children learn about significant people, events and places from both recent and more distant past. They learn about change and continuity in their own area, in Britain and in other parts of the world. They look at history in a variety of ways, for example from political, economic, technological and scientific, social, religious, cultural or aesthetic perspectives. They use different sources of information to help them investigate the past both in depth and in overview, using dates and historical vocabulary to describe events, people and developments. They also learn that the past can be represented and interpreted in different ways.

Impact  

Pupil voice at All Saints shows that children enjoy History lessons. They feel confident to talk about what they have learnt in history using subject specific vocabulary. They are able to recall their learning over time and can make links to learning in other periods of time. They are able to say how the concept of ‘migration’ within their learning is linked to our current evolving school community, giving reasons and showing empathy. Children’s work demonstrates that history is taught at an age-appropriate standard across each year group with opportunities planned in for those working at greater depth. Work is of good quality and demonstrates pupils that children are acquiring substantive and disciplinary knowledge and vocabulary in an appropriate sequence.

Year 2 Trip to Windsor Castle