History

Our Own, Unique Curriculum. 

We have designed our own History Curriculum to suit the geographical location, cultural identity and wider curriculum of our school but we have taken inspiration from and adapted resources by: History Rocks, Twinkl, Mozaweb, BBC Bitesize, CPG texts, Mozaik 3D, myarchaeologost.co.uk, The Historical Association and The National Archives to whom we subscribe.  

We have consciously mapped substantive knowledge, vocabulary acquisition and disciplinary skill development to ensure progression throughout the school. 

Our curriculum encourages children to loop back to previous learning and skills acquisition as they progress through the curriculum. We have also consciously mapped disciplinary skill progression as well. Our children are led to develop: chronological understanding; the ability to evaluate continuity and change; an aptitude for comparing  and contrasting; an understanding of historical terms; and the skills required to communicate historical ideas. 

There are many overlaps between the planning and teaching of History and Geography in our school and this is our intention. 

We have integrated multiple sources of evidence into our planning including carefully chosen field trips placed strategically within our curriculum map.  Children are led to find out about history though a variety of research methods and to evaluate these methods in the process. Specific lessons on the evaluation of sources of evidence have been deliberately planned into Year 4 and Year 6. We aim to encourage our children to think critically. 

Our field trips include: a trip to the seaside in Year 1 to see first hand change over time; a visit to Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain to learn about the significance of Brunel; a visit to a local war memorial in Year 2 as part of our Remembrance topic;  a trip to Caerleon to see the Roman Fortress Baths and meet an expert in Year 3; a Monmouth Rebellion workshop at The Museum of Somerset led by a local history expert and an opportunity to see artefacts related to The Monmouth Rebellion at the museum in Year 4; a walk through time in Taunton in Year 4; a visit to Saxon burial grounds on Exmoor in Year 4; and the creation of a living museum at school in Year 6. We intend to add a visit to a living Saxon village to our curriculum as well. 

We track the progression of knowledge and skill acquisition through 'sticky facts quizzes' and specific 'skills assessment tasks'. We set 'sticky facts' quizzes via Google Docs for consistency of approach and so that data can be easily stored, analysed and shared. 

Gaps in knowledge or skill development are tracked and opportunity provided to close gaps in learning through the tracking process. The tracking system will be used as a tool for reporting to parents. 

Information from assessment will also be used to inform future planning and possible intervention to close learning gaps and to provide effective differentiation. This approach is in line with our current practice in Science and RE and our proposal for Geography for the 2024/25 academic year.  

Our curriculum is enquiry based with an overarching enquiry question guiding the topic and in depth questions leading to deeper dives within each session to build understanding and knowledge within the wider enquiry. Children are led towards using knowledge and skills to evaluate and answer the enquiry question at the end of the topic. 

Intent

We intend for all our pupils to have:

• An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.
• The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.
• 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.
• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry. 
• 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. 
• A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments.
• A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.

Implementation

At St. George’s School, the Early Years it is the first opportunity to introduce pupils with vocabulary associated with History.  Staff follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework which aims to guide children, to make sense of their physical world and their community.  Listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world, which has changed over time.  Pupils are introduced to vocabulary associated with history as they explore the passing of time in their own lives and learn about significant events in the past, e.g. Remembrance – this is the first step of becoming a historian.

In KS1 and KS2 learning will start by revisiting prior knowledge.  This will be scaffolded to support pupils to recall previous learning and make connections. Staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. Children start their journey as historians by understanding their own history and the history of their locality.

• Frequent low stakes curriculum quizzes will review learning and check that pupils are understanding and retaining knowledge.  Learning is also reviewed on a termly basis, after a period of forgetting, so that teachers can check whether information has been retained.
• Our historians will be given a variety of experiences both in and out of the classroom where appropriate to create memorable learning opportunities, foster curiosity and enthusiasm for history, and to further support and develop their understanding. 
• Each topic commences with an overriding enquiry question to focus pupils and foster curiosity.  Topics are compiled of a series of lessons planned for progression and depth. 
• Planning has been reviewed as a whole school, to ensure chronology and progression.  To ensure coverage, planning will consider the progression of skills, knowledge and understanding as outlined in the National Curriculum.
• Our curriculum has been planned around 5 central substantive themes: crime and punishment, achievements, settlements, religion and power and society. The teaching of each historical era will focus on each of these substantive themes. This means children will be able to use their knowledge from previous year to compare and contrast different historical eras.

Impact

At St. George’s Primary School, the impact of quality first teaching in History fosters a love and enthusiasm for the subject. 

Subject lead uses book scrutinise, pupil voice and learning walks to monitor the demonstrate that history is taught at an age appropriate standard across each year group with some opportunities planned in for pupils working at greater depth. Work is of good quality and demonstrates pupils are acquiring knowledge, skills and vocabulary in an appropriate sequence. 

Books scrutinise and planning reviews will ensure progression across the curriculum.

Furthermore, our plan is to ensure:

• Pupils will become increasingly critical and analytical within their thinking, developing some of the skills required in KS3. Making informed and balanced judgements based on their knowledge of the past. 
• Pupils will become increasingly aware of how historical events have shaped the world that they currently live in. 
• They will also have a further understanding of History on a local level and on a small-scale.  
• Pupils will develop enquiry skills to pursue their own interests within a topic and further questioning. 
• Where applicable, pupils will have encountered or participated in high-quality visits/visitors to further appreciate the impact of History. 
• Pupils will retain prior-learning and explicitly make connections between what they have previously learned and what they are currently learning.