To provide children with a secure contextual knowledge of our historical past, to be able to recognise and gain knowledge and insight from different sources and to understand how our history can shape our future.

Intent

At Our Lady Catholic School we want our children to understand the past and how history will shape their future. We believe that historical skills encourage critical thinking, enhance the ability to weigh evidence, generate arguments and develop chronological understanding. We want our children to be active citizens developing their rights and responsibilities in an ever-changing world and to understand the impact that some historical events have had both for their future and their past. The curriculum is structured in a way that allows for children to make links between current and previous learning. Teachers use the long-term plans for history to make comparisons between historical periods previously taught, developing children’s chronological knowledge and understanding from the Stone Age to present day.

We want children to be curious to know more about the past and to have the skills required to explore their own interests. History lessons focus on working as historians and developing historical skills and there are many opportunities for the curriculum to be enriched through historical visits, visitors and events held in school.

We aim to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. It is important for children to develop a sense of identity through learning about the past and we want them to know how history has shaped their own lives. This is why the local area is fully utilised to achieve the curriculum outcomes.

Implementation

Teachers use a variety of teaching and learning styles in their history lessons to develop pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding in history.

We aim to achieve this by ensuring :

• All pupils receive 1 History or Geography lesson a week which will vary in length but will be about 45 minutes to an hour a week, depending on which topic is being taught that half term.

 

•History is taught for three half terms in a year.

•We follow the Kapow pathways as a basis for the topics and then use the NC statements to develop the History teaching to ensure a broad and balanced coverage of the knowledge and skills.

•Each lesson has clear objectives and defined learning outcomes, which are explained to pupils using language appropriate to the year group.

•During key stage 1, pupils will develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time. They will learn 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 will be able to use a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms. They will be able to 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 will also understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past and identify different ways in which it is represented.

•During key stage 2, pupils will continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study. They will note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms. They will regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance. They will be able to construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information. They will understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.

During the Early Years Foundation Stage pupils will begin to:

• Begin to make sense of their own life story.
• Talk about members of their immediate family.
• Comment on familiar past situations.
• Compare characters from stories, including in the past and present.

Teachers and TAs  support ALL pupils on a regular basis; providing support and challenge that individuals require to advance their learning.

Impact

We emphasise the importance of learners’ understanding their role as a citizen in modern Britain; appreciating differences and similarities; showing tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs; being inspired by role models and having ambition to develop their own integrity and self-belief in the world we live in. Across the school at Our Lady’s an awareness of learners’ responsibility as a global citizen is paramount in History lessons; how can learners’ contribute positively to the world around them. Learners’ are continuously encouraged to take risks, solve problems and become self-motivated.

We track measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Track progress throughout the year using the evaluation questions from the topic knowledge organisers and ongoing assessment.
• Tracking of knowledge in learning with post topic assessment questions.
• Discussions with the children about their learning.

Inclusion

Our inclusive and adaptive approach allows all children to learn regardless of race, gender, faith, culture, or disability. We recognise that there are children of differing abilities in all our classes, and so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children. We achieve this through a range of strategies which are differentiated by expected outcome and support from peers or adults. Teachers will use a variety of teaching styles and strategies to meet the needs of all children in their History learning.