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Crowthorne 

Church of England Primary School

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History

History

"It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As a person deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been or where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future." - Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Intent

Our aim for the History curriculum at Crowthorne CofE is to inspire our children's curiosity about the past, in order to aid them as they experience the present and consider the future. We strive to provide them with an increased understanding of their own position within their community and the wider world, and promote the development of a variety of skills such as connecting trends over time, using historic vocabulary appropriately, asking and answering multi-faceted questions (about change, continuity, cause, similarity, difference and significance) and construct informed responses which are informed by thoughtfully selected historical facts and sources.

 

Our key aims are:

  • to provide children with an in-depth understanding of how Britain has changed over time; including both physically and experientially for those living here during different periods, and how this has been, and continues to be, influenced by the wider world
  • to support children in understanding significant aspects of world history, including the nature and achievements of ancient civilisations, the expansion and dissolution of a variety of empires, and the characteristic features of non-European societies; including the achievements and follies of mankind as a species
  • to encourage children to use historical concepts; such as continuinty, change, cause and significance, to make connections, draw contrasts and analyse trends throughout history, to explore the passage of time on the worldwide and local area stages
  • to promote children's independent use of the methods of historical enquiry and enable them to use these rigorously to make historical claims, discern how and why contrasting arguments/interpretations of the past have been constructed, and use their growing knowledge to gain historical perspective and apply this in different contexts
  • to enable children to draw on their historical understanding to recognise connections and differences between local, regional, national and international history, and how these relate to various elements of social and chronological history; between short and long-term, and across cultural, religious, economic, military and political landscapes

 

Implementation

Our History curriculum is not taught fully chronologically as we believe in pairing units of work/periods of history to best fit the developmental readiness of our children. For example, to comprehend the scales, lengths and differences between Ancient Egypt and its similar chronological timeframe to the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age in Britain (in addition to the high content levels of both studies), we felt this would be a challenge for Year 3 children to confidently and securely obtain, when trying to process the conceptually complex differences. Therefore, in favour of the formation of a secure historical understanding, we have instead chosen to split our historical teaching, in KS2, into British history before introducing the wider-world. We believe this supports our children in recognising important past events and changes within Britain and will thus enable them to confidently identify similarities and differences from around the world, and promote a higher level of retention when moving securely from a local knowledge base into that of the wider world and its influences.

 

The teaching of History at Crowthorne is not fully based on in-school learning, however. To support and promote this, our class teachers carefully choose trips, visits and in-lesson experiences to further develop and support our children in accessing the subject and its content - making it real, experiential and actively engaging.

 

Impact

History is monitored and assessed by teachers who monitor the children's comprehension, retention and depth of knowledge while observing them in-lesson, in addition to end-of-unit assessment pieces. Teacher judgements are made based on the children's ability to implement the subject knowledge they have retained and use this, in addition to the elements and skills of historical study taught throughout their time with us, to share, develop and explore their own understanding. The subject is also monitored and guided greatly through lesson drop-ins and book looks conducted by the subject lead, in addition to the gathering and evaluation of pupil voice to guide the subject's further development.

 

At Crowthorne CofE, we want the impact of our History curriculum to be that:

  • children will have the confidence to explore British and worldwide history; relating them carefully and accurately to one another, and cross-contextually
  • children will have received high-quality guidance in the exploration of a variety of ancient and recent historical events, societies, civilisations and cultures to gain an deeper understanding of their local community, the wider world and the world around them
  • children will demonstrate a confident and positive attitude towards historical study and be able to recognise the role of history in understanding the present and the future. They will also be able to utilise this to explore continuity, change, cause, effect, similarity and difference, and implement explorative and hypotheses creation techniques when doing so
  • children will feel confident to ask and seek answers to historical questions, to proactively further, explore and utilise their subject knowledge, and implement skill utilisation as they do to reach appropriate and well-considered conclusions
  • children will have the opportunity to regularly practice and develop the skills taught throughout their time with us, in a range of activities and contexts, and use these when working both independently and collaboratively
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