History

History

A Historian needs:

Thorough investigative and research skills 

Good communication skills 

An interest in human behaviour, culture and society 

An enquiring mind 

Our progressive and bespoke history curriculum will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past so that they can better understand the world in which they live. Our pupils ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. Our history curriculum 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 History – key stages 1 and 2
• 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.

The Curriculum Intent for History at our school

To achieve the above aims, the children will progressively develop historical knowledge, skills and understanding that will help our children to:

• develop an understanding of time, sequence, chronology
• acquire historical vocabulary appropriate to age and ability
• learn about important events and famous people in the past
• aid in discovering changes which occurred over time, eg transport
• identify causes and consequences of people’s actions and change
• distinguish between fact, fiction and different points of view of events in the past
• study representations and interpretations of history by different people
• use primary and secondary sources, to piece together a true picture of the past
• select, organise and communicate their knowledge.