History
Our History intent, implementation and impact.
At Travis St Lawrence Academy, our History curriculum is designed to fulfil the National Curriculum requirements through a broad and balanced approach, ensuring both progression of Historical disciplinary and substantive knowledge as well as providing pupils with memorable experiences.
Intent
At Travis St Lawrence Academy, our history curriculum should be fully inclusive to every child. It fulfils the formal requirements of the National Curriculum and it inspires motivation for learning. Our broad and balanced curriculum is bespoke to our pupils and to the community in which they live. Children build on previous historical, knowledge and skills. Recognising the importance of enriching our pupil’s vocabulary, pupils are introduced to topic specific vocabulary, given opportunities to use this new historical language and recap it in future lessons.
Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about the world around them. Through a variety of teaching styles, children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
The aims of teaching history in our school are:
- To help children develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of local, British and world history and using a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms, note connections, contrasts and trends over time
- To teach pupils where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and using common historical words and phrases, identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods
- To inspire pupils’ curiosity and interest in the past so they ask historically valid questions that stretch their knowledge and understanding.
- To show our children that knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources and encourage the use of these artefacts, documents and resources so the children can find answers to their questions and reflect on their new learning.
- To encourage children to reflect on cause and consequences and create their own viewpoint once a sound knowledge of a topic has been acquired.
- To understand the impact and significance of historical events and how this impacts on their lives.
Implementation
At Travis St Lawrence Academy, History is taught as a discrete lesson and each year group covers three units each year. The National Curriculum forms the basis for our History teaching in Key Stages One and Two. Therefore, lessons are structured to cover the disciplinary and substantive knowledge required in order to meet the aims of the national curriculum as well as any specific local history that we perceive as important as a school.
Foundation Stage planning for Knowledge and Understanding of the World shows how we engage our Reception children in early past and present experiences. Mostly focusing on their personal history for example, How have I changed since being a baby? And; How did people travel in the past?
Planning is based on the Whole School Plan and is progressive each year. The substantive concepts are: Trade and Industry, Civilisation, Monarchy, Empire, Exploration, Migration, Settlement and Rebellion. We encourage the children to work as historians and have an enquiry-based style of teaching. Each history unit is broken down into key questions. Disciplinary knowledge is concerned with developing historical rational and critical thinking within enquiry, and can be categorised into 6 Disciplinary concepts that are developed in our history curriculum:
Chronological Knowledge: Ordering and sequencing events in time, recognising the past and present and using and creating time lines to show chronology including events beyond living memory.
Evidence and interpretation: Recognising a source of information which tells us something about an event or person in history and using these to help us find answers to questions.
Continuity and Change: Knowing what things stayed the same throughout or within an era in history and what has changed.
Cause and Consequence: Linking to continuity and change establishing why things changed and the impact on the world around it.
Similarities and Differences: Comparing what was the same between people, events, objects and ideas within history and identifying the things that were different.
Significant Events and People: Pinpointing key individuals and events from across history who have had an impact on the way people live, think and act. Critically discussing and debating their contribution to society.
Every new history unit has a knowledge organiser, which highlights the key facts/events/significant people the children will learn about. It will include the key vocabulary the children will learn. Knowledge organisers are used to recap learning and as an assessment tool.
Visiting experts and trips off site are organised when we feel that they can enhance the learning process. For example Year 3 visit the Yorkshire Coal Mining Museum and Year 4 visit Murton Park.
Impact:
By the end of their education at Travis our learners will have gained a broad and balanced body of historical knowledge and a wide range of disciplinary and substantive knowledge.
The impact of our curriculum is measured in terms of the extent to which pupils have developed new knowledge, understanding and skills and that they can use and recall this with fluency.
In History, this will be measured by:
- Assessment tasks and regular knowledge check activities.
- In school attainment tracking.
- Children assessing their own understanding at the end of each lesson by reviewing their success against the learning objective.
- The ability to ask questions and have discussions.
- Subject leader book/ learning monitoring.
Please click on the image below to access the National Curriculum.