History at Hardwick
‘A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’ - Marcus Garvey
History is about gaining a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
It gives children the skills to make connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms. It equips pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement.
Without it they would not be able 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.
It feeds into our school’s curriculum intent by delivering a carefully designed History curriculum that embeds powerful knowledge, transferrable knowledge and sequenced knowledge. From this knowledge rich curriculum, we can ensure that all pupils learn more and remember more about significant historic events and influential people as they progress through school. It provides many valuable opportunities to help pupils become critical and creative learners which in turn also develops their vocabulary and oracy skills.
History is taught across the whole school from the very youngest children in our nursery to those in Year 6. Our curriculum ensures that children progressively learn new knowledge and skills so that they understand why and how things have changed over time and make comparisons to other people and places across the world.
Our curriculum ensures that our children:
- 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.
- Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’ and ‘civilisation’.
- 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.
- 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.
In addition, all pupils experience a number of exciting educational visits to historical places. Some of the places that children visit are local areas, castles, public/national parks and museums. Children enjoy becoming ‘historians’ as they discover and explore a range of historical artefacts applicable for each event/era they are learning about.
As children progress across school they learn more historic events that are significant nationally and globally. Pupils develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history. Links to Geography, in particular, and other subject areas are also explored.
Please see below our curriculum progression grid for History, detailing how our children progress through knowledge and skills from Nursery to Year 6:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zkqmhyc - KS1 BBC Bitesize History topics with guides, videos, activities and quizzes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zcw76sg - KS2 BBC Bitesize History topics with guides, videos, activities and quizzes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/horrible-histories – BBC Horrible Histories (child-friendly episodes, video clips, songs, quizzes and games).
https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3620/primary-topic-websites - Covers many primary topics with information, quizzes and activities.
https://www.historyforkids.net/ - Covers many primary topics with information, quizzes and activities.
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/history/ks1-2/resources/units/#3 – Lots of information, activities, links to other websites.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOsWpKKF0EXs-Sanqh0hvZQ/videos - YouTube videos and songs about a variety of history topics.
https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/teacher-category/history/ - Lots of interesting facts about a range of primary topics. You can set up a magazine subscription for your child.