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History

'The farther backwards you can look, the farther forward you can see'

Winston Churchill 

Intent

At Henbury View First School, we are historians! We want our children to love history. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be archivists, museum curators, archaeologists or research analysts. Our aim is that, through the teaching of History, we stimulate all children’s interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past. We teach children a sense of chronology, in order to develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. This enables our children to learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain. We aim to make all children aware of the actions of important people in history and enable children to know about significant events in British history, whilst appreciating how things have changed over time. History will also ensure our children understand how Britain developed as a society, contributing to their understanding of their country of residence. Furthermore, our children will learn about aspects of local, British and Ancient history. This wider awareness leads to the children having some knowledge of historical development in the wider world. We believe that by allowing the children to understand the importance and enjoyment of History through different opportunities, they will become enthused learners about the world around them. Through the teaching of History, we endeavour to teach pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, including those of the present, the process of change, the diversity of societies and beliefs, whilst celebrating these differences.  

Implementation

History is taught in half termly blocks throughout the year, so that children develop a deeper understanding and depth to their learning. Teachers understand the key knowledge and skills of each topic and consideration has been given to ensure progression throughout each year group across the school. All learning starts by revisiting prior knowledge. This will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. Staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

We ensure, through our curriculum design, that knowledge is built upon, giving the children the opportunity to make connections between periods of history as well as concepts, creating a mental timeline. We ensure that we allow children to develop understanding of ‘fingertip’ and ‘residue’ knowledge, where children gain knowledge for the now through learning about different time periods but also for their long-term memory in regard to concepts. Many of these concepts, which as historicised, feature regularly throughout our curriculum within a range of contexts. As a result, they are particularly important to pupils’ understanding of new material, allowing our children to be able to draw on their secure knowledge of these repeatedly in a number of different contexts. We feel this is highly important, as this encompasses children enquiring historically, allowing them to delve into the role of a historian.

Key Threads

At Henbury View, we have key threads that run through and across year groups. These will continually be revisited and explored across the academic journey of a child at Henbury. Each thread is underpinned by key vocabulary and knowledge that will be explicitly taught in History. The key threads are:

Interpreting Evidence

Cause and Consequence

Change and Continuity

Similarity and Difference

Significance- People, Places and Events

Chronology