History
History Statement of Intent:
At St Paul’s C. E. Primary School, our intent, when teaching history, is to stimulate the children’s curiosity about the past, in order for them to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding. Through our lessons, we intend to inspire pupils to develop a love of history and see how it has shaped the world they live in, from their local community of Stalybridge, to Greater Manchester, Britain, and the wider world.
Our history curriculum enables children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. Through historical enquiry they will explore the significance of historical sources of information, develop their questioning skills and present their findings.
We believe that it is important for children to understand that the past influences the present and the future. We want to encourage children to learn that they can’t change history, but what they can do is learn about it and learn from it, then use this information to help shape a better future.
Implementation:
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. History is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. In order for children at St. Paul’s C. E. Primary to know more and remember more in each area of history studied, our lessons are structured so that prior learning is always considered and opportunities for revision and retrieval of key dates, events and facts are built into lessons. Lessons start by revisiting the previous learning, connecting knowledge throughout different year groups in order to smoothly link children’s learning. Retrieval practice, such as quizzes, also provide great opportunities to help make the key knowledge stick.
This all allows for revision to become part of good practice and ultimately helps build a depth to children’s historical understanding. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lessons help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge. Revision and introduction of key vocabulary is built into each lesson. This vocabulary is then included in knowledge organisers and display materials to ensure that children are allowed opportunities to repeat and revise this knowledge, providing children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long term memory.
Our history curriculum is progressive, beginning in EYFS where children learn about the world around them and their families, leading into KS1 where they learn about history within living memory, finally leading into KS2 where they learn about the chronology of Stone Age through to World War Two, covering the guidance based on the National Curriculum.
Statement of Impact:
The impact will be seen across the school with an increase in the profile of history and the visibility of progression in the history curriculum. The learning environment across the school will be more consistent - with historical technical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Whole-school and parental engagement will be improved through the use of history-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning.
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. Progression across the school can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment (such as success criteria grids and KWL grids) and low-stakes assessment (such as retrieval quizzes and summative assessments), all of which inform and target next steps in learning.