Subject leader – Miss Murphy
History Curriculum Overview
Our vision for History is that all pupils develop skills through an enquiry approach.
In History pupils are encouraged to question their understanding of the past allowing them to enjoy all that History has to offer. Through the use of artefact and exciting trips, pupils gain an in-depth understanding of significant events in British history as well as appreciating how things change over time. Without History, there would be no future!
History is central to many of our topics at Sunnybrow Primary as it allows pupils to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It inspires pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past and equips them 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, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Across EYFS, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, subject specific skills are taught, for example interpreting history, inquiry skills and chronological understanding are taught.
As we run a 2-year cycle due to mixed age classes, it is not possible for us to sequence topics in chronological order however, in each academic year, content is sequenced chronologically. We ensure children develop a strong sense of chronology through explicit lessons/teaching focusing on chronology and timeline.
Our curriculum maintains a consistent knowledge base to ensure conceptual progression. Woven within our curriculum are our ‘golden threads’. These are a set of historical concepts that children will revisit throughout KS1 and KS2. As the children revisit each historical concept, they build on previously taught learning, developing their understanding and knowledge of each golden thread, whilst observing how they change throughout time. Here is an overview of our ‘golden threads’:
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.
EYFS
Foundation Stage history is part of the national curriculum’s learning objectives for developing children’s understanding of the world, so they will learn through experiences that introduce the concept of time and change.
Pupils will be asked ‘What happened next?’ after reading a story or looking at other sequences of events, such as getting dressed, planting a seed or making a sandwich. A popular focus is to get children to bring in photographs of themselves as babies and to discuss how they have changed over time.
Pupils will also explore patterns and routines and may be given opportunities to take part in events to celebrate time, like planting an anniversary tree. It’s common for pupils to be encouraged to record their findings by drawing or writing.
Key Stage 1
Pupils should develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time. They should know where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods. They should use a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms. They should ask and answer questions, choosing and using parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of events. They should understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past and identify different ways in which it is represented.
Key Stage 2
Each year group gets a wide scope of history. They study a period of British history before 1066, an ancient civilisation from around the world, and either an aspect of British history post-1066 or the local area. The British units are delivered in chronological order, from the Stone Age right up to the settlement by the Vikings to build-up the children’s understanding of the story of Britain and how it developed over time. They then begin to learn about the Tudors and the Victorians to get a picture of how their ancestors used to live. By studying Ancient cultures such as the Greeks, Egyptians and the Romans, pupils begin to understand how foreign civilisations affected modern life.
