History
Why History matters:
The study of the past enables us to understand the present and shape the future. While the events of the past do not change, our understanding and interpretation of them have changed over the years and will continue to do so.
The study of History in our school enables us to realise our vision of life in all its fullness by:
Kindness: Understanding the experiences of individuals and groups in the past helps develop empathy for those whose experiences we don’t share. Learning about people’s different beliefs and ideas in the past, and the reasons for them, we encourage children to respect others now and in the future.
Growth: History is not an easy subject! There is so much to learn, remember and understand. It is important to be resilient and know that their understanding of how events are linked over time will increase as they go through primary and secondary school. We have high standards of how the subject is taught and the work the children produce.
Integrity: Understanding the causes and consequences of people’s actions in the past helps us understand the responsibility we all have for our actions and what we say.
How we deliver it:
History is taught weekly in half-term blocks by the class teacher.
Our skills progression document shows how we cover the National Curriculum for Key Stage 2 at St John’s.
The British history content of the KS2 curriculum is taught in chronological order.
Our History Subject Overview shows the enquiry question for each topic. The enquiry question provides a focus for the substantive knowledge that will be taught in each topic. Each enquiry question focuses on a different area of disciplinary knowledge: causation; continuity & change; similarity & difference; interpretations; and significance. From Year 3 to Year 6, children will encounter all of these historical concepts two or three times.
Key vocabulary (largely tier 2 vocabulary) is central to the teaching of History and should be explicitly taught and revisited. The overview enables teachers to see what vocabulary has been taught in previous years and which will be revisited in each topic, so that their lessons build on prior learning.
Each topic has a topic overview and topic vocabulary document to support teachers. The topic vocabulary document provides definitions to ensure consistency across year groups.
Planning for each topic has either been written with or by the subject lead using a range of resources (Historical Association, BBC Bitesize, British Museum, English Heritage, for example), or uses high quality planning from PlanBee, adapted to ensure that key vocabulary is taught and the enquiry question is addressed.
Each topic begins with a timeline.
Retrieval starters are embedded in our planning to ensure that key knowledge and understanding is remembered and built on over time.
The subject is brought to life through the loan of discovery boxes, workshops (e.g. Crew), visits/virtual visits to museums (e.g. the British Museum) and topic days.
How we know we are doing it well:
Retrieval starters provide the opportunity to revisit prior learning and address misconceptions
An assessment grid for each topic enables children to answer the enquiry question at the end of the topic, following a whole class discussion.
The Subject leader monitors teaching & learning through book looks, learning walks and by monitoring year groups’ planning documents to ensure the progression of skills is taking place and that other identified priorities are being addressed (for instance diversity).
The subject leader attends network meetings to ensure they are up to date with best practice and proactively leads training for teachers, following monitoring, to ensure the subject knowledge and pedagogy of all teachers is strong.
