History ( from September 2023)

Intent

At Tudor Primary, we believe that History should be enjoyable, engaging and reflective of the diversity of the past in our local area, Britain and the wider world. We want our pupils to learn from historians and become historians themselves. We believe that children should know what history is and ought to recognise the value of studying it, to analyse and evaluate the community and the world around them. This includes enabling them to think critically and answer historically valid questions thus making them think like a Historian through the use of evidence from the past.  They should also develop the understanding of how the past has impacted our lives today. Our curriculum will help them to build upon their historical knowledge and skills to interpret historical sources and to understand that there are different perspectives of the past.

Finally, we aim for our children to leave primary school with a clear mental timeline of the periods that they have studied in both Britain and the wider world.

The national curriculum for history 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

Implementation

Historical learning happens throughout our school, from Nursery to Year 6. 

EYFS

In Nursery and Reception, the children do not study specific History topics; instead, teachers lay the foundations for future historical learning. Our EYFS curriculum achieves this by building in opportunities for the pupils to:

• Build a concept of the past and the present through looking at their own lives and things that are familiar to them.
• asking questions
• place events in chronological order in stories
• discuss images of familiar situations from the past and compare them to the present day

Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2

As a school, we follow the principles of Chris Quigley’s scheme of work in terms of cognitive science but have adapted the themes to link to the intent. The scheme follows Rosenshine principles (modelling, retrieval, student practice, scaffolding and questioning) which are well embedded within our school. We follow Chris Quigley’s cognitive science and principles but have further adapted the scheme to fit in with our pupil’s heritage, background, culture and locality.

When teaching History we focus on developing children’s historical knowledge and skills through their investigation of an open ended question or idea which they will work to answer through an inquiry based approach over a series of lessons.

Our History curriculum has been sequenced to build upon the skills and knowledge that they have gained in previous years, and make clear links and comparisons between the different civilisations, periods, places and people that they have studied.

During History lessons, children use their oracy skills to discuss the information they have learnt which helps them to answer the key idea that they are investigating and develop the characteristics of a historian which are:

● A knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.

●Develop the ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.

●Develop the ability to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources.

●Develop the ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.

●Gain a passion for history through a sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.

●To engage in opportunities to undertake research across a range of history topics.

Our pupils categorise their knowledge, skills and understanding around the following ‘Big ideas’ in developing historical learning:

• Chronological knowledge/ understanding (wider, more detailed and chronologically secure knowledge)
• Historical terms (Develop the appropriate use of historical terms)
• Interpretations of History (deeper understanding of more complex issues and of abstract ideas)
• Historical enquiry (sharper methods of enquiry and communication)

5a Continuity and change (closer integration of history’s key concepts)

5b Cause and consequence

5c Similarity/difference

5d Significance

Impact

By developing History skills through explicit teaching, both our teachers and pupils are able to assess their learning. Before the beginning of a new concept, KS1 pupils are given a pre-quiz and at the end of it, a post quiz to reflect on their knowledge and understanding. Our ‘Quality writing pieces’  for KS2 enables teachers to make professional judgements about the depth of pupils' learning and progress made over time.