History Curriculum

A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History 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.

National Curriculum 2014

Curriculum Intent

At St Patrick's Catholic Primary our history curriculum 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.

Curriculum Implementation

Our teaching and implementation of the History Curriculum is based on the National Curriculum, ensuring a well-structured approach to the subject.

Detailed long and medium planning is in place to ensure engaging curriculum content and
systematic revisiting of key concepts and bodies of knowledge to deepen learning.

Vocabulary is explicitly taught in all units to ensure that historical terminology is understood. These words are carefully chosen to ensure that they are transferred to other subjects.

Trips and visits are routinely planned to enhance the teaching of history and to make use of the rich and varied history in our locality. Visits in the past have included; the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, Wroxeter Roman City, Cadbury World and the Ironbridge Gorge Museums.

Enrichment weeks such as Black History Month, Jubilee week etc. are planned into our calendar to raise awareness of significant events or topics.
 

Below is on outline of our curriculum offer in History from EYFS to Year 6.

EYFS

In Understanding of the World children learn about the lives of people around them and their roles in society. They identify some similarities and differences between things in the past and now and learn about characters and events in the past and the present. Much of this learning is done through listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, visiting parks, libraries and museums.

Specifically taught topics are enquiry based and include: 

How have I changed since I was a baby? 

Why do we wear different clothes throughout the year? 

What are your favourite celebrations each year? 

Key Stage 1

Changes within living memory (Toys).
Events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally (Remembrance, Great Fire of London)
The lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and
international achievements (Explorers)
Significant historical events, people, and places in their own locality (Charles Darwin, Houses and Homes)

Key Stage 2

Changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
The Roman Empire and its impact on Britain
Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots
The Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward
the Confessor
A local history study (Ironbridge)
A study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological
knowledge beyond 1066
The achievements of the earliest civilizations (Ancient Egypt)
Ancient Greece
A non-European society that provides contrast with British history (The Mayans)

Curriculum Impact

Throughout each block of study, teachers carefully plan to embed and assess the children’s
knowledge using a range of formative assessment strategies. These include retrieval questions, vocabulary assessments, extended writes, quick quizzes, use of knowledge organisers and self and peer assessment.

A range of other activities take place across the year to measure the impact of learning in History including marking written work, book looks, pupil interviews, staff meetings, annual reports to parents and learning walks. Assessment data is collected once a year and is analysed by the History Lead.