At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School we are passionate that our children should be curious and inquisitive when it comes to learning about history. History is a subject based on real people and real life events meaning that it is crucial for all our children to have a strong knowledge of the past in order to fully understand their own identity. History enables pupils to understand the social, political, cultural and economic events which have defined modern society. Our aim when teaching history is not only to fire children’s curiosity about the past in Britain but also to learn what life was like in the wider world throughout key historical periods. As the children become immersed in their historical learnings, they will see and understand the diversity of human experiences in the past, leading to them understanding more about themselves and their individual experiences within society. What they will learn and discover throughout history will ultimately have an impact on their own future decisions, choices, attitudes and values.
Throughout the key stages the requirements of the National Curriculum for history will be met. Teachers will provide a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills.
The aims of teaching history in our school are:
- To instil in the children a curiosity and understanding of events, places and people in a variety of times and environment
- To develop an interest in the past and an appreciation of human achievements and aspirations
- To understand the values of our society
- To learn about the major issues and events in the history of our own country and of the wider world and how these events may have influenced one another
- To develop a knowledge of chronology within which the children can organise their understanding of the past
- To understand how the past was different from the present and that people of other times and places may have had different values and attitudes from ours
- To understand the nature of evidence by emphasising the process of enquiry and by developing the range of skills required to interpret primary and secondary source materials
- To distinguish between historical facts and the interpretation of those facts
- To understand that events have a multiplicity of causes and that historical explanation is provisional, debatable and sometimes controversial
Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers
All children will have Quality First Teaching. Any children with identified SEND or in receipt of pupil premium funding may have work additional to and different from their peers in order to access the curriculum dependent upon their needs. As well as this, our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their starting points.
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. History is taught on a two-year rolling plan in Key Stage 1, Lower Key Stage 2 and Upper Key Stage 2. A new topic is introduced at the start of every term and focusses on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School, we ensure that history has the same importance given to it as the core subjects, as we feel this is important in enabling all children to gain ‘real-life’ experiences.
The history curriculum at Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills and taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using curriculum documents, outlining the essential knowledge and skills to be taught in each topic. Teachers can use this document to plan their history lessons suitable to their class’s interests and what they want to learn.
When teaching history, teachers follow the children’s interests to ensure their learning is engaging, broad and balanced. To ensure this is always the case, children will complete a KWL task at the beginning of each new topic. The KWL task will highlight facts that the children already know about a topic and questions which the children would like to discover the answers to.
At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School we provide a variety of opportunities for history-based learning inside and outside the classroom. Every year we have a ‘Humanities Enrichment Afternoon’ where the teachers plan fun, engaging activities linked to history and geography for the children to complete. These activities should be guided by the children’s interests in particular topics. The enrichment afternoon also offers an opportunity for parents to engage with the school and join in with their children’s learning.
Educational visits are another opportunity for the teachers to plan for additional history learning outside the classroom. A historical based trip will be planned for each Key Stage at least once during the academic year.
Within history, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to help children gain a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the school.
Our history curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught (KWL Task)
- Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning
- Images and videos of the children’s practical learning
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice)
- Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work
- Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum
- Marking of written work in book