History

History is essential because it provides an understanding of where the world came from and how it has developed to become the world we know today. It helps us to learn from mistakes in the past to make a better future. It is important to remember our heritage as this creates who we are as people and how we view the world.

Our history curriculum is planned to support our children to have an excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from a range of historical periods, including significant events in Britain’s past and the local area. The children will be able to think critically about history and be able to effectively communicate to a variety of audiences using historical vocabulary. They should have the ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others' views using historical evidence from a range of source

Our curriculum for history is carefully mapped out to ensure progression and consolidation using a small steps progression document based upon Chris Quigley’s milestones. To ensure high quality subject knowledge and historical knowledge/skills, some of the units are based upon  planning from  The Historical Association, Mr T does History and Key Stage History.

At King William Street school, we work on a two-year rolling programme for our topic coverage. It allows our children to consolidate key historical knowledge and skills for each key phase, before moving onto the next. It also provides an opportunity to revisit and remember knowledge across our curriculum and study our chosen topics with a deeper level of understanding. This similarly allows staff to share subject expertise and ensure workload for teachers is supported by allowing sharing of planning.

Our history curriculum follows a simple model

Each unit has an overarching Key question

Threaded through the units are substantive knowledge themes which underpin an in-depth knowledge of a topic or time period that supports further historical learning. These are repeated across the curriculum so that each one is planned to be encountered multiple times throughout their primary journey.

Our substantive knowledge themes are:

beliefs: explores the day to day routines and practices which people in the past acted by e.g. sacrifice, symbols, pagan practices, life after death

conflict :supports children to understand how conflict has affected human behaviour throughout history e.g. historic events, reasons for invasion, types of conflict, tactics.

culture and pastimes: supports children to understand how people from the past spent their time e.g. sports, games, music, stories and books, architecture

food and farming: supports children to understand how food and farming has enabled people from the past to sustain themselves e.g. hunter gathering, farming, trad, technological breakthroughs.

settlements: explores how people have organised themselves into settlements e.g. homes, defences, important features such as proximity to a river.

society: supports children to understand the way in which people organise themselves e.g. life for different sections of society, education.

travel and exploration: supports children to understand how people travelled and how far they travelled e.g. reasons for travel, types of transport, how transport was powered, technological advancements.

Alongside these are disciplinary concepts which enables the children to develop the knowledge about how historians investigate the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts. These are threaded through the historical units, so the children have opportunities to encounter and embed this knowledge. Our disciplinary concepts are:

change and continuity :analysing the pace, nature and extent of change.

consequence: understanding the relationship between an event and other future events.

historical enquiry: selecting and combining information that might be deemed a cause and shaping it into a coherent causal explanation

historical significance : understanding how and why historical events, trends and individuals are thought of as being important.

handling evidence: how historians use sources to make claims about the past.

similarity and difference :analysing the extent and type of difference between people, groups, experiences or places in the same historical period.

We encourage a love of history starting in Early Years and progressing to when children embark on their secondary education and beyond. We bring history to life, through a range of teaching techniques and enrichment activities such as the use of artefacts and whole school theme days. Where relevant, specific visits or visitors will be considered to further knowledge and skills, and again, to excite and enthuse.

Each lesson is identified with the subject heading of history and an ‘I can’ statement sticker that is taken from each year groups small steps progression document. Each ‘I can’ statement is a small step towards the children achieving the milestone for that subject. These ‘I can’ statements are then highlighted in the children’s books and the attainment is then recorded on the history part of Sonar.

The  monitoring of this subject takes various forms. A key component is pupil voice alongside their class history learning journey. School leaders use these to ensure children have the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge fully as well as determine  how the children ‘know more and remember more’.