Killingholme Primary School

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

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Our intent is that our teaching of History will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world to build respect, appreciation, and pride of their country and the countries which make up the world. Our curriculum is aimed to inspire children’s curiosity and fascination about people and places and their impact on our world today.

Our curriculum takes in to account the location of the school and the content of the National Curriculum to ensure our children have an accurate understanding of the history of the world in which they live.

The drivers which our curriculum are based around, have been carefully chosen and sequenced to ensure coverage across the Year Groups and Key Stages is built upon alongside the skills of being a Historian.

Our pupils will learn knowledge about the history of Britain and how it has influenced and been influenced by the wider world; know and understand about significant aspects of history of the wider world like ancient civilisations and empires; changes in living memory and beyond living memory; learn about significant people of the past, understand the methods of historical enquiry and be able to answer questions. We want children to enjoy and love learning about history by gaining these knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits.

We aim to develop the following essential characteristics of historians:

• How our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources and representations.
• To build an overview of British, local and world history.
• To know where people and events studied fit within a chronological framework.
• Use a wide vocabulary of historical terms while noting connections, contrasts and trends over time.

Our Implementation:

At Killingholme Primary, History is taught in blocks throughout the year, so that the children achieve depth in their learning. We use progression grids to ensure the skills are clear and knowledge and vocabulary progression is built upon throughout school. KS1 works on a one year cycle and KS2 follows a two year cycle - Year A and B. Where appropriate, we use historical artefacts, visitors, workshops and visits to excite, engage and intrigue our children, presenting lots of opportunity to support their understanding about the past.

At the beginning of each unit, children create a concept map, where they are able to write down any knowledge they currently know about the topic ahead. They then add and build upon this each week at the end of a lesson in green pen. This creates a working document, which the children have ownership of, to show the knowledge which has been learnt throughout the term. At the end of the unit, children are given an exit task to measure the progress. In addition to this, at the beginning of each lesson, a retrieval practise activity is given to the children about the previous weeks' learning to bring the knowledge back to the forefront. This is known to the children as ‘It’s Nothing New’. We use assessment for learning to ensure all lessons are relevant and will help to plan for next steps.

Child speak skills mats can be found in the front of foundation subject books and these ensure children not only know what they are learning, but also the skills they are learning to be a Historian. 

Subject co-ordinators are given regular time to ensure resources are kept up to date, to monitor subjects across the school, create action plans and provide subject feedback to SLT as appropriate. Subject leads once a term will also generate a standards report, based on the teacher's assessment of students over the term. This will inform their next steps in their subject.

The Impact:

By the time the children at Killingholme leave our school, they should have developed a secure knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from the historical periods covered ready for Key Stage 3 and be able to think critically about history and communicate confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences. They will also have 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.

They will develop an ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, forming and refining questions and lines of enquiry and harbour 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. This will build a respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgements. As well as, encompass a desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.