History

History at Boarshaw Primary School

 

Intent

At Boarshaw Primary we believe that ‘Every Moment Matters’ and that our pupils deserve a history curriculum that is designed to be inclusive and promote excellence. Our History curriculum includes termly topics for all children from Year 1 to Year 6. We aim to offer a high-quality history education that 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. It also helps children gain a sense of their own identity within a social, political, cultural and economic background. Because of this, we feel it is important for the subject to be taught discretely as well as incorporated within other curriculum subjects such as English and Art.

 

Implementation

 

At Boarshaw Primary, our history curriculum follows the FOCUS Education programme of study and provides children with an array of enriching opportunities, with a strong focus on Learning Challenges. As a result of this, a topics-based approach has been implemented to ensure history is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on the knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. Carefully planned topics ensure there is a progression of historical skills and knowledge across the school with teachers planning engaging lessons that follow our progression of knowledge and skills document. Each topic starts with a launch quiz which is later revisited at the end of the topic to demonstrate knowledge acquisition, as well as this we implement a ‘Flashback 4’ approach to each history session which looks at previous learning to ensure this is embedded in the children’s working memory. At the centre of our history curriculum is the use of deep-thinking questions as whole topic and lesson drivers. These deep-thinking questions allow the children to weigh evidence, scrutinise arguments, make connections and develop their own judgement. Our children’s journey as historical thinkers starts in EYFS where children begin to think about special events in their own lives. As our children progress through KS1 and KS2 they build upon these foundations and are able to ask meaningful questions, think critically, understand chronology and gain historical perspective by making connections between the topics that they have learnt. We engage and enhance.

 

Cultural Capital

Children will learn about areas of significant historical interest within their local area. In addition, they will learn about current topical historical events such as changes within the monarchy and important sporting events.

They will also experience the following:

• Possible trips and visits within the local area including trips

• Workshops with specialist historians.

• Opportunities to explore artefacts from a specific period of history.

• Learning about and celebrating historical events such as Bonfire Night and St. George’s Day.

British Values

At Boarshaw Primary, we aim to promote British values through History. British values, including those of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs are embedded in the History curriculum. Students explore issues such as democracy in their historical context and relate them to the modern day through studying periods such as Ancient Greece. This enables the students to understand how, overtime, changes happened and to evaluate their impact. By looking at the achievements of famous British people (KS1), students develop an awareness of how they have influenced and shaped the country in which we live. This includes an appreciation of their work. Teaching students to respect and value diversity is encouraged in the day to day teaching and learning through showing respect for different viewpoints and ideas as well as in the ability to work effectively together both individually and in groups.

 

 

EYFS

 

The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum supports children’s understanding of History through the planning and teaching of ‘Understanding the World’. This aspect is about how children find out about past and present events in their own lives, their families and other people they know. Children are encouraged to develop a sense of change over time and are given opportunities to differentiate between past and present by observing routines throughout the day, growing plants, observing the passing of seasons and time and looking at photographs of their life and of others. Practitioners encourage investigative behaviour and raise questions such as, ‘What do you think?', ‘Tell me more about?', 'What will happen if..?', ‘What else could we try?', ‘What could it be used for?' and ‘How might it work?' Use of language relating to time is used in daily routines and conversations with children for example, ‘yesterday', ‘old', ‘past', ‘now' and ‘then'.

 

 

Impact

 

The impact of this curriculum design will lead to outstanding progress over time across key stages relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills. Children will therefore be expected to leave Boarshaw reaching at least age-related expectations for History. Our History curriculum will also lead pupils to be enthusiastic history learners, evidenced in a range of ways, including pupil voice and their work

 

History coverage at Boarshaw Primary School

 

Year group	Autumn	Spring	Summer
EYFS	What do different people celebrate?   Traditional English celebrations.	What happened long ago?   Significant local and national history.	What is it like at the seaside?   Looking at how seaside towns have changed over the years.
1	Autumn 2 What has changed since my Grandparents were young?	Summer 1 Why did the Great Fire of London start?	Summer 2 Who was famous when my mum and dad were little?
2	Autumn 2 Why did the Titanic sink?	Spring 2 What was Middleton like long ago?	Summer 2 Why were Neil Armstrong and Christopher Columbus brave people?
3	Spring 1 Who were the first people to live in Britain	Spring 2 Does Middleton have a past?	Summer 2 Why were the Ancient Greeks ruled by their Gods?
4	Autumn 2 How can we recreate the wonder of Ancient Egypt?	Spring 2 Why were the Romans so powerful and what did we learn from them?	Summer 1 Why is Manchester marvellous?
5	Autumn 2 Who were the Anglo Saxons?	Spring 2 Why should Britain be ashamed of Slavery?	Summer 2 Who were the Mayans and what did we learn from them?
6	Autumn 2 Were the Vikings always victorious and vicious?	World War 2	What part did Manchester play on the Industrial Revolution?

Useful links:

Primary National Curriculum for History

History Progression at Boarshaw

History Progression of Skills at Boarshaw

Tour Egypt

Archaeology for Kids

BBC History for Kids

History Histories

CBBC Horrible Histories pages