History

Intent – what does the History curriculum intend to do?

At our school, we intend for our pupils to receive a high-quality History education which helps them to develop a chronological knowledge of the history of Britain and the wider world, through embedding both substantive and disciplinary concepts and knowledge. We want our pupils to develop their substantive knowledge of the past and their disciplinary knowledge of how they think and act like a historian.

We hope to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past and equip pupils to ask questions, think critically, analyse evidence, and develop perspective and judgement – thinking and acting like a historian. It is our intent that pupils become ‘more expert’ with each History study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental timeline to gain an accurate, connected understanding of the past.

Implementation – how is the curriculum implemented?

We follow a broad and balanced History curriculum that builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. Our History curriculum strategically incorporates a range of modules that revisit, elaborate and sophisticate key concepts, events, people and places with our structure being built around the principles of advancing cumulative knowledge, chronology, change through cause and consequence, as well as making connections within and throughout periods of time studied.

The foundational knowledge of the curriculum is positioned to ease the load on the working memory: new content is connected to prior learning. The effect of this cumulative model supports opportunities for children to associate and connect with significant periods of time, people, places and events.

All classes (Years 1-6) have a scheduled History lesson scheduled as part of a three-week block per half term. This means that pupils receive 12 hours of History teaching and learning per term.

Impact - what progress will children make?

Our History Curriculum is well-sequenced and planned to demonstrate progression. Pupils are engaged and enthused about learning about the past, and gain not only knowledge, but the skills they require to think like a historian to prepare them for future learning at Secondary school.

Our pupils develop an understanding of the world in which we live and the way the past has shaped this. Pupils at Timbertree leave us with a broader cultural capital that they can utilise throughout their educational journey and their journey into society.

Aims:

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
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.