Intent:

We have a plan of objectives, usually embedded into our projects, to help teachers ensure they have covered the skills required to meet the aims of the national curriculum. The intent is to ensure all pupils feel inspired and enjoy producing creative, imaginative work. History aims 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 history in KS1 projects such as ‘Toys’ and ‘Me, Me, Me’ enable children to acquire an understanding of time, events and people in their memory and their parents’ and grandparents’ memories.

Due to mixed aged classes, it is not possible to teach the curriculum chronologically on all occasions. However, to aid the children’s chronological understanding, timelines are displayed in each class with the relevant prior learning and current historical projects being studied. There is also a detailed timeline displayed in the hall to enable all children to understand how their class timelines incorporates into the bigger picture.

Implementation:

History is usually planned as part of our cross curricular projects, using our objective tracking document to ensure coverage and progression document to ensure the development of skills and knowledge. The lessons may be planned as individual lessons or series of lessons which include resources available to support the teaching.

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 built into lessons. However, this is not to say that this structure should be followed rigidly: it allows for this revision to become part of good practice and ultimately helps build a depth to children’s historical understanding. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our projects help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenges. The revision and introduction of key vocabulary is built into each lesson. 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:

Teachers and pupils across school are enthusiastic about History, teachers have high expectations of work presented in books. Children are starting to be taught a greater variety of historical vocabulary which they are able to use accurately.

The learning environment across the school will be more consistent with historical technical vocabulary spoken and used by all learners. 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.