St Joseph's Catholic Primary School A Voluntary Academy

History

Subject leader: Mrs T Syms

INTENT

Through our curriculum for history, we want our pupils to develop a sense of time and place, to know about those who have gone before to shape the world that we now live in. We want our pupils to understand that many viewpoints exist and that we can learn from the past to help effect the future.

Through our history curriculum we will help the children develop their learning through narrative. They will learn through concepts such as: continuity and change, similarity and difference, significance, cause and consequence. They will develop a secure sense of chronology of British and World history. We will develop and equip our pupils to ask questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. We will help pupils to understand the complexity of theirs and other people’s lives, change, the diversity of societies and different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

We will teach fun, exciting lessons that ensure children remain enthusiastic, motivated and curious learners. We will ensure that our lessons are planned carefully so that pupils of all abilities, including those pupils with special educational needs, are able to partake fully in the study of history.

IMPLEMENTATION

At St Joseph's we aim to provide the opportunities for children to practise key skills, we implement and embed our approach in all that we do. Through planning we demonstrate a coherent sequence of learning and coverage of the National Curriculum and key historical skills needed for our learners to develop to their full potential.

In EYFS, pupils learn about the history of themselves from a baby, significant events leading up to present times. They will learn to retell past events in their lifetime in the correct order. They learn about key historical events such as Remembrance Day and key religious festivals. This will all link to RE teaching, following on from Jesus being a baby, learning about his childhood and his journey to become an adult.

In KS1, pupils are introduced to learning about changes in living memory and beyond living memory, by learning about the lives of significant people of the past, understand the methods of historical enquiry and beginning to ask and answer questions about the past.

In KS2, pupils learn about the history of Britain from the Stone Age to Romans creating knowledge of lives, experiences and methods that changed our world today. Along with exploring ancient times such as the Egyptians and Greeks. Then, children learn more in depth about the 19th and 20th century focusing on Victorians, WWII which develops a deeper understanding of historical concepts such as change and continuity, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance of events.

History is taught as a half-termly or termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum, to build an in-depth knowledge about a particular period in history, or understand how an aspect of life has changed through time.

Through quality first teaching misconceptions are addressed within lessons and links are made to embed and deepen knowledge and understanding.

IMPACT

By the end of their learning journey at St Joseph's we want our pupils to:

have a secure knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from the historical periods covered
have the ability to think critically about history and communicate confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences
have the ability to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources
have a passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
to be able to make links between our local, regional, national and international history
to retain the knowledge of the historical topics they have studied throughout school or through first-hand experiences they have had at St Joseph's
to feel prepared for the next stage of their history education and part of their adult life

Assessment

We assess children's learning in history through questioning and by way of our Big Digs. Here prior learning is assessed continually at the start of each lesson. Children will have a Big Dig question or questions that enable them to retain knowledge of the subject. At the end of each topic, children will have a quiz designed by the teacher to assess knowledge of that topic.

Greater Depth

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National Curriculum for History

History around school...