Redlands Primary and Nursery School

History at Redlands

The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future – Theodore Roosevelt

Building a community of lifelong learners where everyone strives to be the best they can be - both as an individual and as part of the Redlands family - so that we can be proud of ourselves and our school.

Proud to be Redlands; Proud to be me.

We have developed an ACE curriculum at Redlands built on three main curriculum drivers.

Aspiration

Community        

Experience

Aspiration within History

•       Building aspirations for the future so that all children can leave Redlands with skills to understand their world around them and how they came to be here, to know how to place events on a timeline, to be able to form and voice opinions.

•       Taking a keen interest to explore the past by providing first hand experiences such as Partake and Newstead Abbey.

Community within History

•       To have an understanding of how communities have developed over time through learning about daily life in each period studied.

•       Exploring community links within the history learning components – such as our local study about Worksop.

•       Children will be able to make sense of their local area and see how history has shaped the world we live in both locally and globally.

Experiences within History

Children have a range of experiences and visits from nursery to Y6 to enhance their history curriculum from Partake to Newstead Abbey and Nottingham castle.

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

· 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 

Intent 

Our teaching of history will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world to build respect, appreciation, and pride in their country. We aim for it to inspire pupils’ curiosity about the past and to develop their understanding of key events. 

Through the teaching of History, we endeavour to teach pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, including those of the present, the process of change, the diversity of societies and beliefs, whilst celebrating these differences.  Pupils will be taught to make links between these areas of learning, with the aim of developing engaged, motivated and curious learners that can reflect on the past and make meaningful links to the present day.

Our history curriculum has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. Meaningful links with other subjects are made to strengthen connections and understanding for all children.

We aim to provide opportunities for the children to research and enquire about inspirational people in history from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. We hope to provide a stimulating environment to increase pupil interest and enjoyment and promote a positive attitude to history. Activities, visits and visitors are planned to provide first-hand experiences for children to support and develop their learning as historians and their historical experiences.

Implementation 

In EYFS, our nursery and reception children gain an understanding of the world, technology, people and communities. They have the foundations laid for history so that they can build on this knowledge in key stage one and beyond.

At Redlands, we implement the history curriculum in line with the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum. We deliver a programme of study from nursery to Year 6.

In KS1, we concentrate on personal history and explorers. In KS2, we deliver history topics chronologically throughout the key stage (with the exception of our local study in Y6) using the following skills:

·      Chronological understanding

·      Knowledge and Interpretation

·      Historical Enquiry

History is blocked into learning components termly and where possible cross-curricular links are made between other subjects including English, art, design and technology, geography and music. Each academic year has progressive skills embedded into each unit, which can be built on, providing opportunities for retrieval of prior knowledge and communication and making links.

Impact

Topic and English books evidence a broad and balanced history curriculum which demonstrates the children’s acquisition of identified key knowledge. Analytical thinking and questioning help pupils to gain understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world through time.

Our children are keen historians and are curious to know more about their past and how events have helped to shape the past, present and future. They are encouraged to ask perceptive questions, weigh evidence, think critically and develop their ideas.  Our aim is to ignite a curiosity to learn about the past that will help children understand who they are and how their environment and the world has changed over time.

History Knowledge Progression Document