Intent

Our History Curriculum intends to inspire our pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past in their locality and beyond. Through planned topics, children have opportunities to build a chronologically secure understanding of British history, as well as that of the wider world. In History, we aim to ensure that pupils gain a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’ and ‘civilisation’. We aim for children to understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance. Children will show that they can support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using a range of sources. Children will be able to communicate their ideas confidently in a multitude of ways.                                                                               

Teachers will plan lessons that cover the knowledge and skills that are expected for each year group.  Teachers planning and teaching will ensure they are covering the National Curriculum Progression of skills for each year group, knowing what has been taught the previous year and what are the next steps in Knowledge and skills for the next year group. Teachers will use History progression documents to plan lessons that build upon Knowledge and skills ensuring there is a deep understanding so that all children have the opportunity to master the learning. We aim to experience local History first hand by getting outside, visiting local historical sites or bringing History to the classroom through interactive tools such as Mozaik Education.

Implementation

Newlaithes’ History curriculum is high quality, promotes challenge for all children and is reflective of a broad and balanced curriculum.

All learning will start and end with a quiz to identify pupils’ knowledge and progress. 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. Learning will be supported through the use of knowledge notes that provide children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long term memory.

Revision of key concepts and knowledge are revised regularly through low stake quizzes, so that teachers are able to assess pupils’ understanding. Visits to historical sites and museums, as well as school visits are helping our children to gain further knowledge and understanding of what the past was like.

Impact

Historical knowledge has been mastered when a child can confidently and securely talk about their historical knowledge using the historical language to explain their ideas and can independently apply the knowledge to new learning in unfamiliar situations.