Curridge Primary School

History never looks like history when you are living through it.
 

Intent

Studying history helps children to understand their place in the world, and in the long story of human development.

Through history, pupils come to understand their place in the world, and in the long story of human development. It challenges them to make sense of the similarities and differences in human experiences across time and place so they can make sense of their own culture and identity and those of other people, wherever and whenever they lived.

We aim to teach children ‘cause and effect’ and how to critically analyse sources of information that describe events.

Children make progress in history by developing:

• Their knowledge about the past (This knowledge is often described as ‘substantive knowledge’)
• Their knowledge about how historians investigate the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts (Often described as ‘disciplinary knowledge’ or ‘historical enquiry’)

Implementation

• Adequate curriculum time is given to history to enable teachers to deliver a broad history curriculum that develops secure knowledge for pupils
• The history taught enables children to make links with the past and their own experiences and builds ‘layers of knowledge’
• There are regular opportunities for the history curriculum to be reviewed so that there is a progression of knowledge across the school
• Teachers develop children’s historical knowledge as well as ensuring children can analyse and debate the information taught
• Ensuring that we make links between ‘substantive’ and ‘disciplinary’ knowledge
• Give children opportunities for practical ‘hands on’ experiences (Roman Day at Ufton Court, Stone Age crafts etc)

• Providing children with opportunities to read or hear appropriately challenging texts
• Ensuring that teaching and curriculum design secure children’s chronological knowledge
• Giving children opportunities to study aspects of the past in overview and in depth
• Supporting children to learn new content through meaningful examples and historical context that makes ideas and concepts more familiar (Comparison of similarities and differences)
• Making sure pupils have repeated encounters with a wide range of important concepts in a number of different contexts (Young Shakespeare Company, Ufton Court, Museums etc)
• Providing rich stories and contextual details about the past to make abstract ideas more meaningful

Impact

Pupils’ progress through the curriculum depends at each stage on the range and depth of their existing knowledge and how secure it is in their minds. This knowledge is what allows pupils to understand and learn new material. Our Learning Journeys demonstrate how concepts and knowledge build on previous learning while also taking into account the learning children still need to experience so we can be sure that children have ‘historical building blocks’ throughout their time in our school.

Children will:

• Know the broad characteristics of particular periods
• Know the general features of periods
• Have knowledge of the chronological order of broad periods
• Have knowledge of particular dates and events
• Have knowledge of broad developments, links or themes across periods
• Understand new concepts through familiar and meaningful examples
• Understand abstract ideas through rich texts and experiences
• Understand new ideas through contextual and background information
• Have opportunities for incidental learning
• Understand key concepts through repeated encounters