Curriculum Intent: History

Characteristics of a Historian

An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.
The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.
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.
The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.
A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments.
A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.

Implementation

Our pupils should be able to organise their knowledge, skills and understanding around the following learning hooks:

Investigate and interpret the past
Build an overview of world history
Understand chronology
Communicate historically

These key concepts or as we like to explain them to children – learning hooks, underpin learning in each milestone. This enables pupils to reinforce and build upon prior learning, make connections and develop subject specific language.

Please see our History Curriculum year group overview which shows the accumulation of knowledge and skills from Reception to Y6.

Vocabulary

The promotion of a language rich History curriculum is essential to the successful acquisition of knowledge and understanding in history. Children have access to key knowledge, language and meanings to understand History and to use these skills across the curriculum.

Our History Vocabulary document identifies key vocabulary to be taught from Reception to Year 6. These words are part of a whole host of work aimed at narrowing the vocabulary gap for our children. As a school we aim to expose all children to a broad range of vocabulary and provide them with the skills to use and apply these.

Aspirations For The Future

Pupils develop an understanding of how subjects and specific skills are linked to future jobs.

Here are some of the jobs you could aspire to do in the future as a Historian:

Member of Parliament
Curator
Publicity Assistant
Tour Guide

Impact

Assessment

Through the explicit teaching of the History skills, both the teachers and the pupils assess their learning continuously throughout the lesson. At the end of the unit, pupils are given the opportunity to reflect on their knowledge and understanding. Our assessment systems enable teachers to make informed judgements about the depth of their learning and the progress they have made over time.

Pupil Voice

“My favourite lesson was when we wrapped each other up in toilet paper. We had to mummify people and now we know how it feels to be an Egyptian.” – Matthew.

“I really like history because I get to learn so much about what happened before I was born. It’s really exciting!” – Hollie.

“Miss really likes teaching history because every time we do fun things and she gets excited.” – Aaron.

Snapshots

This is what history looks like at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School: