History

Intent

At St Anne’s, we endeavour to develop a love for History amongst all of our learners through a variety of teaching strategies. We aim to instil knowledge and skills throughout the year groups, through stand-alone History lessons (with opportunities to make cross-curricular links), ensuring they have a chance to retrieve prior knowledge and deepen their understanding of concepts. It is taught 2-3 half terms throughout each year, alternating with Geography. Skill progression is important amongst our learners. We intend to teach transferable skills which will equip the children when looking at new historical topics throughout their school life.

Implementation

Our aim is for children to learn about the past and present through different topics in History and identify similarities and differences across periods in time, developing a solid understanding of chronology in line with the National Curriculum 2014. Different sources of information are used such as educational videos, artefacts, non-fiction information books, and local visits to historical landmarks or museums. Our long-term plan shows that children in KS1 begin by looking at History in their local environment, such as the Battle of Nantwich, Salt in Nantwich or significant men or women in the area and then progress to more national/international historical periods such as World War 2, Anglo-Saxons, Ancient Greeks, significant men and women globally and so much more. We include multiple ‘WOW’ days across the History curriculum, where children can become fully immersed in their learning – as if they really living in that time! From pupil feedback, this has been a great success and we aim to continue to provide this sort of experiential learning to help develop their ‘sticky’ knowledge, knowing more and learning more ignited with passion.

Key areas of our progressive curriculum will ensure that children:

• Know and understand local history with chronology;
• Know and understand history in the wider world;
• Develop a strong understanding for key vocabulary throughout the curriculum;
• Gaining a historical perspective of their growing knowledge and understand where this would be placed in different contexts, and;
• Understand that evidence is used rigorously throughout history and how this has developed contrasting arguments in the past.

At St. Anne’s, we encourage children to reflect purposefully and knowledgeably throughout their learning in History, developing their ‘sticky knowledge’ and individual learning flares, with our school mission “Christ at the heart of all we do” being reflected throughout.

Impact

Overall, our enriched and progressive curriculum assists the children in developing their chronological and historical knowledge with passion and enthusiasm. It is developed to be touched upon throughout our core-curriculum, whereby children have consistent opportunities to retrieve and recall their knowledge through literature and technology, helping to carve their historical understanding, making it memorable and most importantly, enjoyable.

Files to Download