Our Intent

Our intention is to deliver a coherently planned sequence of lessons to ensure children have progressively covered the skills and concepts required in the National Curriculum. We aim to develop historical skills and concepts which are transferable to whatever period of history is being studied and will equip children for future learning. These key historical skills and concepts, which are revisited throughout different units, are: Historical Interpretations; Historical Investigations; Chronological Understanding; Knowledge and Understanding of Events, People and Changes in the Past; Presenting, organising and Communicating. The coverage of recent history in KS1 such as ‘Toys’ and ‘Travel and Transport’ enables children to acquire an understanding of time, events and people in their memory and their parents’ and grandparents’ memories. In KS1, our curriculum is taught chronologically in reverse to allow a full opportunity for children to really grasp the difficult concept of the passing of time. Our intention in lower KS2 is that children can work in chronological order from ancient history such as ‘Ancient Egypt’ and then progress onto more modern history such as ‘The Railways’. Our Year 5 & 6 lessons allows children to repeat and embed this sequence of chronology with a wider selection of ancient history such as ‘Early Islamic Civilisations’ and ‘Stone Age’ through to more modern history such as ‘World War II’ and ‘Leisure and Entertainment’. The repeat in KS2 of chronological order from ancient to modern allows for children to truly develop and embed a sense of time and how civilisations were interconnected. Children start to understand how some historical events occurred concurrently in different locations, e.g. Ancient Egypt and the Stone Age.

Implementation

In order for children to know more and remember more in each area of history studied, there is a structure to the lesson sequence whereby prior learning is always considered and opportunities for revision of facts and historical understanding are builtinto lessons. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lesson plans and resources help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge. The revision and introduction of key vocabulary is builtinto each lesson. This vocabulary isthen included in displaymaterials and additional resources to ensure that children are allowed opportunities to repeat and revise this knowledge. Adult guides and accurate historical subject knowledge are provided within lessons to allow the teacher and adults working in those lessons to feel confident and supported with the historical skills and knowledge that they are teaching. Through these lessons, we intend to inspire pupils and practitioners to develop a love of history and see how it has shaped the world they live in.

Impact

History will be taught to contextualise and ignite an interest in global and local history and children will be excited about learning history. The learning environment across the school will be more consistent with historical technical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Whole-school and parental engagement will be improved through the use of history-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning. We want to ensure that history is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to want to continue building on this wealth of historical knowledge and understanding, now and in the future. Impact can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons and regular assessments of learning.

We use the Kapow scheme of work as the basis for our planning of History.