History at The Pines

The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future - Theodore Roosevelt

Vision and Intent

At The Pines, our vision for the teaching of History is that our children will leave primary school with a rich knowledge of the events that have shaped the world we live in today and have an understanding and appreciation for the significant people who paved their way to achieve greatness.

We aim to:

• Provide an engaging History curriculum that inspires a love of learning from events in the past.
• Help children to gain a sense of their own identity through our diverse and multi-cultural curriculum.
• Develop oracy skills through debate and discussion.
• Help children to learn from the historic basis of modern day events and practices
• Encourage children to be curious, ask questions and think critically in order to make their own judgments about past historic events.

Our Curriculum Drivers are reflected through our History curriculum as it:
Helps children understand THEIR PLACE IN OUR WORLD, by exploring the past and how it has shaped society today.
Develops their LANGUAGE & ORACY skills through the discussions and debates had around significant events in history.
Enables children to LEARN the SKILLS of critical thinking as they learn from the achievements and mistakes made in the past.
Promotes having a HEALTHY BODY through learning from bad practices used in the past, often as a result of a lack of knowledge for health, welfare and personal hygiene. 

Implementation

History at The Pines is taught using a variety of teaching and learning styles in order to develop children's knowledge, skills and understanding. The lessons are planned alongside the National Curriculum objectives and are tailored to maximise the outcomes for each year group. Our history curriculum is taught over a two year cycle with KS1 classes changing their topic every half term and KS2 classes changing topic every term. Threads, or substantive concepts, have been developed in order that learning can be re-enforced and given structure. This repeated exposure will allow children's schematic understanding to evolve and grow deeper as they get older. Our threads are:
 

• Hierarchy and Power
• Settlements and Civilisation
• Invasion and Conquest
• Culture and Beliefs

Entry point

At the start of a new curriculum topic, the children take part in activities to immerse them into their new area of learning. When the curriculum area has a focus on a historic event or time period this may involve:

• A visit from someone significant within the local community to introduce the time period through stories and artefacts.
• Going on a trip to a museum or place of interest.
• Having an opportunity to handle artefacts within the classroom.
• Producing a piece of art work relating to the topic in some way.
• Looking at secondary sources of information such as books and films.
• Using drama to act out historical events.

These entry point activities promote a sense of awe and wonder and engage the children in their new area of learning.

Big Question

Additionally, at the start of a new curriculum topic the children will be posed a big question. The big question is open ended and often has numerous ways it can be answered. Throughout the topic of learning, the children will gain knowledge and an understanding of that period of history in order to answer the original big question. Our big questions can be found on the knowledge organisers and topic overview documents found below.

The subsequent lessons throughout the term will therefore all link back to the big question. Lessons are often taught in isolation but can also be blocked to enable focused learning over a period of time.

Lessons

History is often taught using a cross-curricular approach as the unit of learning will often link other subjects such as geography and science.

Exit point

At the end of each humanities unit, the children will take part in a variety of exit point activities. The aim of the exit point is to allow children to make explicit links in their learning, consolidate facts and ideas taught throughout the unit and deepen their understanding of this time period. 

Impact

The impact of our history teaching is evidenced through teacher assessment, low-stakes tests and lesson observations. Children are able to voice their opinions on their learning as well as recall important dates, historical events and a variety of factual information that they have learnt. The written outcomes evidenced in children's books demonstrate that they have a secure understanding and can verbalise the knowledge they have learnt.

-Children at The Pines have an established knowledge of history from before records began to the modern day.

-Children leave school with a chronological understanding of when events occurred.

-Children can reflect upon and form opinions about historical events.

-Children have a positive attitude towards history in school.