Intent:

At St Paul’s Church of England Academy, we believe that high-quality History lessons inspire children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians. By linking learning to a range of topics, children have opportunities to investigate and interpret the past, understand chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world, and to be able to communicate historically.

Our historians will also be able to explain clearly how these sources give us an insight about how people around the world used to live and how these interpretations may differ. Pupils will be taught to make links between these areas of learning, with the aim of developing engaged, motivated and curious learners that can reflect on the past and make meaningful links to the present day.

Our History curriculum has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum states that ‘a high-quality History education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past.’

We develop children with the following essential characteristics to help them become historians:

§ An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from a range of historical periods, including significant events in Britain’s past;

§ The ability to think critically about History and communicate ideas confidently to a range of audiences;

§ The ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using historical evidence from a range of sources;

§ The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past by formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry;

§ A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make critical use of it to support their learning;

§ A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of History topics;

§ A developing sense of curiosity about the past and how and why people interpret the past in different ways.

Implementation:

All learning will start 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. Learning will be supported through the use of knowledge organisers that provide children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long term memory.  The knowledge organisers allow teachers to assess the children at the start and end of the topic and see whether they have retained the knowledge taught so far.

Our historians will be given a variety of experiences both in and out of the classroom where appropriate to create memorable learning opportunities and to further support and develop their understanding.

Impact:

At St Pauls, Pupil voice shows that pupils are confident and able to talk about what they have learnt in History using subject specific vocabulary. Pupil voice also demonstrates that pupils enjoy History and are able to recall their learning over time. Pupils work demonstrates that History is taught at an age appropriate standard across each year group with opportunities planned in for pupils working at greater depth. Work is of good quality and demonstrates pupils are acquiring knowledge, skills and vocabulary in an appropriate sequence.