History

 

"The more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future."

-Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

At St. Michael's Church of England Primary School, we aim for a high-quality history curriculum, which enables the development of a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain's past and its association to the wider world. Within this, we provide a broad, balanced curriculum, which encompasses the British Values throughout. Our exciting, tailored topics aim to inspire curiosity within our pupils, to enable them to think and act like historians. The teaching sequences empower our pupils to understand the history of Britain and how it has influenced and been influenced by the wider world, know and understand about significant aspects of the history of the wider world (including ancient civilisations and empires), explain changes within and beyond living memory and learn about the lives of significant people of the past. Our skills based curriculum also equips children with the ability to answer perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement.

 

We want our children to enjoy and love learning about history by gaining this knowledge, understanding and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits, enabling them to deepen their understanding of who and what has shaped our world today.

 

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. History is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. On re-designing our curriculum, teachers worked in collaboration to ensure knowledge of skills were explicitly and progressively built into sequences of lessons. Staff meeting time is also used effectively, to gather evidence, ensure progression and make adjustments where necessary to enhance pupil engagement.

 

At St. Michael's, we recognise the importance for children to gain 'real-life' experiences though hands-on, practical activities. We ensure this through fieldwork and educational visits. For example, using the local area to look at how the landscape and its uses have changed in Key Stage 1, to using artefacts and places of interest to compare and contrast life now to the past in Lower Key Stage 2, through to in-depth comparisons of similarities and differences in environments in communities in Upper Key Stage 2.

 

The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children are equipped with historical enquiry skills, knowledge and concepts, in addition to guiding their attitude to historical events, which will enable them to be reflective learners, ready for the Key Stage 3 Curriculum. Through doing this, we aim to generate an excitement for historical enquiry, to encourage the children to become lifelong learners in the wider world. We hope that the importance placed on our History curriculum, along with the passion that emanates from our creative, enthusiastic teachers, will highlight and ignite in the children an importance for studying events from the past. It is our belief that bringing these experiences to our pupils' present, will positively shape their futures.