History
“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ”
– Michael Chrichton
Intent
We believe that our children should learn about significant events and people in History so that they can develop an enquiring and questioning mind. Through following the National Curriculum and the Pilgrim Progress assessment system, St Mark's will develop a sense of identity and place, give children the opportunity to reflect on their school, community and local area and encourage all our children to be historians who see how the past has impacted on their lives. Our curriculum develops a sense of identity and place - pupils leave with sense of cultural understanding and have learnt about significant events and people in history.
Implementation
Teachers plan carefully to make sure that the sequence of teaching and learning is relevant to our pupils. Our curriculum builds chronological understanding and an appreciation of how historical events impact our lives today.
We use the National Curriculum and our self-developed ‘Pilgrim Progress’ assessment procedures provide support for staff and pupils to monitor their progress against the gaining of key skills and knowledge. This important spine allows us to manage our split classes and plan a clear four year cycle of topics and learning that begins with an individual child's starting point. The foundation stones to a successful education lie in the acquisition of basic skills and knowledge.
The key concepts include:
- Understanding chronology
- Building an overview
- Investigating and interpreting
- Communicating historically
We use Pilgrim Progress and the National Curriculum to ensure all aspects, knowledge and skills of History are being taught across all year groups. Along with geography, our Topics are often guided by our History theme.
Where appropriate we use historical artefacts, visitors, workshops and visits to excite and intrigue our children to find out more about events and people from the past. We aim to give our children as much understanding as possible about what is was like to be around at a particular period in history by having practical and experiential lessons where possible.
The curriculum we create reflects current historical events and celebrations where we can.
In EYFS, the children at St Mark's learn to talk about themselves and how they have changed over time. Through studying families they start to understand these changes and develop the skills associated with enquiry.
The Keystage 1 and Keystage 2 Curriculum builds on these concepts and extends them using different contexts.
Pupil Voice
"History happened a long time ago. I like visiting castles and finding out about the battles and how castles protected people."
Oliver age 5
"History is about learning about things that happened a long time ago. It teaches us about the world in the past."
Amelie age 6
“Being a history detective means finding out lots of things and then putting it all together. It’s like solving a puzzle.”
Ruari age 6
History is what you learn about in the past and how things have changed over time.
We learn about how different people have ruled at different periods of time and what things have worked and not worked successfully.
We can look at primary sources of evidence such as a diary or fossils. We can look at ruins from castles or photographs people have taken. Once I went to Camber Sands and saw houses where people used to fight in the war and I was able to then have an idea what life was like for them.
Cherry age 9
The past. It is what happened in the past. It is about age. The history can impact on the quality of our lives today and also has affected life over a period of time.
We learn about the past mistakes that others have made and to not do them again. We learn about structural design and how people lived before the 21st century.
We learn about history through what others have left behind and what they have done when they lived during their period of life.
Reid age 10