History

Intent

At Flora Gardens we believe that high-quality history lessons inspire children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians. By linking learning to a range of topics, children have opportunities to investigate and interpret the past, understand chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world and to be able to communicate historically. We develop children with the following essential characteristics to help them become historians:

• An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from a range of historical periods, including significant events in Britain’s past.
• Learning about the concept of chronology, which underpins children's developing sense of period, as well as key concepts such as change and causation.
• The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas confidently to a range of audiences.
• The ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using historical evidence from a range of sources.
• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past by formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.
• A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make critical use of it to support their learning.
• A developing sense of curiosity about the past and how and why people interpret the past in different ways.

Implementation

For our children to know more and remember more in each area of history studied there is a structure to the lesson sequence whereby prior learning is always considered and opportunities for revision of facts and historical understanding are built into lessons. Across both key stages, children have a range of opportunities to experience history through practical engaging tasks beyond the classroom.

The acquisition of key historical skills is an integral part of our history lessons. Each half term the History Lead plans and delivers the curriculum from Years 1-6 through a consistent, subject specialist approach -

• A wider curriculum overview map that ensures each year group builds on the previous;
• A comprehensive History overview that includes progression statements and additional non-statutory content to enhance cultural capital;
• A series of lessons that build on the prior ones and careful consideration for revisiting knowledge, progression and depth. These lessons are taken from the a range of schemes and where applicable and have been chosen to match Topics where possible; with additional content at the discretion of the History Lead based on children’s’ interests, current events and open-ended enquiry questions where applicable;
• A History Topic Quiz for each year group each half term - being used as an informal, low-stakes way of assessing children’s learning each half term.

Impact

At Flora Gardens our history curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: 

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school.
• Pupil discussions about their learning.
• Termly History Assessments that highlight children who are working below, at and above.

A full range of resources, including display materials will be seen across the school with an increase in the profile of history. The learning environment across the school will be more consistent with historical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. School and parental engagement will be improved with history-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning.

How Parents Can Help

A good way to help is visit museums, historic houses and talk about the topics that your child is doing in school. The children who love history are often the ones who have seen a love of the past in their parents. There are many free museums, especially in London. Use them as a resource and spend time sharing the past together. Otherwise, watch age-appropriate history programmes on TV.

There are some fantastic children’s books based in the past. Whilst these are often fiction, there will be facts and figures in the books that children will remember. Some good examples include anything by Caroline Lawrence (the Roman Mysteries), Goodnight Mr Tom (WW2 and evacuation), Stig of the Dump (Clive King) and picture books or non-fiction books that you can share at bedtime.

Further Support And Useful Weblinks

•  The BBC website has loads of links to videos, games and information a range of historical periods
•  Try Teaching History with 100 Objects for some great ideas for using artefacts to teach history