History

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

At the heart of our curriculum lie our school values (respect, responsibility, honesty and pride) and these are reflected in the daily life of school. Topics are informed by the National Curriculum and are sensitive to children’s interests, as well as the context of the local area. Our aim is that, through the teaching of History, our pupils:

• have an interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past.
• have a sense of chronology in order to develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage
• are aware of the actions of important people in History and to know about significant events in British history, whilst appreciating how things have changed over time
• learn about local, British and Ancient History
• develop their skills of enquiry, investigation and analysis

Implementation: 

At Goat Lees, we plan our curriculum collaboratively utilising the skills and knowledge of the staff. The School Curriculum incorporates the National Curriculum but extends beyond this to include the wider opportunities provided at Goat Lees Primary School.

• Units of work are designed to build upon children’s previous knowledge and skills and develop their sense of history chronologically
• A progression in skills map has been developed for each year group to ensure the children build on and develop their skills each year
• At the beginning of each new History unit of work, teachers teach a timeline lesson to develop children’s understanding of chronology
• In order to support children in their ability to know more and remember more, there are regular opportunities to review the learning that has taken place using retrieval activities
• Children are given a knowledge organiser at the start of each unit of work which details some key information, dates and vocabulary. This is not used as part of an assessment, but to support children with their acquisition of knowledge and is used as a reference document.
• Children are given opportunities, where possible, to study artefacts leading to enquiry, investigation, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and presentation
• We plan for effective use of educational visits and visitors, to enrich and enhance the pupil’s learning
• Consistent learning walls in every classroom provide scaffolding for children. Tier three subject specific vocabulary is displayed on the learning wall along with the key facts and questions and model exemplars of the work being taught
• An enquiry question is used at the start of a unit of work and then each subsequent lessons to structure pupils thinking. At the end of the unit, pupils will answer the line of enquiry weighing up evidence from sources, knowledge learnt and key historical facts
• The layout in books may look like: a cover page for the unit of work with the key line of enquiry displayed, knowledge organiser, a timeline for period of history being studied, retrieval activities throughout

Impact

By the time the children leave Goat Lees Primary School, they should have developed:

• A secure knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from the historical periods covered
• The ability to think critically about history and communicate confidently
• The ability to evaluate source for effectiveness and use it to justify opinions
• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past
• A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways

 If you would like to find out more about our areas of study, please click here for the whole school curriculum map for History/Geography.

If you would like to see how our History lessons are sequenced throughout the school, please click here for our whole school History curriculum. Our teachers then use a medium term planning document to help them plan individual lessons, Please click here to see an example of this.

 If you would like to see how our Early Years Curriculum links to the History curriculum in years 1-6, please click here.