History
Intent
At St Mark’s CE Primary School, our broad and balanced curriculum enables pupils to become curious, creative and independent individuals. Through our integrated approach, all pupils access rich and engaging learning opportunities. Our projects are informed by the National Curriculum, enabling us to plan and sequence a high-quality history curriculum we can deliver to every child at St Mark’s. The curriculum focuses on four main areas:
• Changes within living memory
• Significant events beyond living memory
• The lives of significant individuals
• Significant historical events
Where History is a lead subject, our projects are enhanced by exciting hooks, visits, class exhibitions and performances that enthuse and encourage the children’s learning and bring history to life. Children are taught to think critically and to ask and answer questions. This helps them to understand the complexity of people's lives and how historical events have shaped our world.
The key skills children need to become historians are further embedded through our carefully planned Learning Values. Our history curriculum encourages children to be independent, interdependent, creative and curious thinkers. The development of these skills in History helps St Mark’s pupils achieve the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed as educated citizens.
Key knowledge and subject specific language is taught alongside these necessary skills to allow children to become passionate, inquisitive historians. Teaching and learning is carefully designed, adapted, reviewed and enhanced to ensure every child succeeds and achieves.
Implementation
Learning is planned to ensure that all pupils access engaging, high quality lessons about historically important civilisations, individuals and events. Through our unique integrated curriculum pupils take part in immersive learning opportunities. Influenced by the National Curriculum, teachers are equipped with secure subject knowledge to ensure progression through lesson sequences.
History and the concept of the past is introduced in Reception where children explore the personal histories of their own families. This knowledge is then built on as children begin to explore past significant moments in local, British and World History, starting in Key Stage 1 and progressing into Key Stage 2.
The history curriculum at St Mark’s has been planned to also provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate and develop their school Learning Values of; Thinking, Spirituality, Interdependence, Independence and Creativity.
In projects where History is a Lead Subject, ‘Hooks’, visits, exhibitions, performances, and final project ‘Outcomes’ link to and showcase the specific historical topic that pupils have studied. For example, Year 1 and 2’s project ‘SOS Titanic’, concludes with pupils creating and recording a radio broadcast based on real radio broadcasts made at the time.
St Mark’s also draws on the expertise of history specialists and experts through trips to museums, historical centres and local places of historical interest. Items of historical importance are also loaned to the school to enrich learning, and to provide opportunities for subject specific skills to be further developed. For example, the Year 3 and 4 project ‘The Road from Rome’ begins with an archaeological dig, where pupils discover real Roman artefacts loaned from a local museum.
Whole school and class worships provide opportunities for history learning to be further embedded into our curriculum. Each week, children in every year group are given the opportunity to discuss and think critically about a relevant focus for the week for example, Remembrance Day and why we remember the soldiers who fought for our freedoms. Using Picture News, Collective Worship allows children the time and space to discuss and respond to historical events and news in this country, and all around the world; promoting the development of British Values.