Intent

At Petham Primary School it is our aim to provide children with a high-quality education in History that ignites their curiosity about the past, develop an understanding of the present and shape their thinking about the future. The curriculum immerses students in a range of cultures and civilisations that will enable them to have a critical outlook on the world.

It is also our aim to deliver a carefully sequenced curriculum that offers our pupils a broad understanding of the chronological development of British and international history, enhances pupils understanding of local history and develop and use their skills in enquiry, analysis, evaluation and argument. Children will be able to track their learning through key skills clearly identified at the beginning of each topic, whilst making links back to previously taught concepts. Vocabulary will be sourced and defined at the outset of study to enable all children to fully access their learning journey through a topic. 

Our school values are central to everything we do, and history is no exception. Pupils will demonstrate leadership by taking ownership of their own historical enquiry, whilst understanding the importance of leadership when learning about key global leaders from throughout different periods history. They will learn the importance of organisation by organising key findings of their historical enquiry and through the sequencing of chronology. Pupils will discover how resilience was key to the outcome of war in Britain. Finally, pupils will show initiative and communication in their historical study by being encouraged to make meaningful links between key concepts, evaluating sources, drawing conclusions and sharing findings. 

Implementation

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.’

At Petham Primary School, we have a carefully sequenced curriculum that covers a range of key abstract themes. These include legacy, early life, settlement, invasion, societal & cultural change and reformation and they develop in a progressive nature from EYFS through to Year 6. In addition to this, the curriculum places key historical concepts such as chronological understanding, diversity, change & continuity, cause & consequence, historical significance and interpretation at centre of each topic in order to develop children's understanding of how historians understand the past. 

Chronological Understanding|Historical Interpretation|Historical Enquiry

The above strands are all mapped out to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge, as set out in our class long term planning documents. When covering each of these strands, the content will be carefully organised and evident in a topic title page, allowing children to see how new learning builds on what they already know. Teachers and pupils alike then use these skills identified from each strand in order to track their progress throughout the learning journey. Thus, ensuring a precise and consistent approach across the school.

Current learning will be evident on a whole class learning journey displayed in every classroom. This provides a consistent point of reference to pupils throughout a topic and acts as a reminder of prior learning, supporting retrieval. Children will be given an opportunity to explicitly retrieve what they have learnt at the end of a topic. This will be done through a carefully planned and differentiated retrieval practice task. Assessment in history is ongoing throughout, but teachers will use the end of topic retrieval task as a means of assessment and this data is tracked using our whole school assessment tracking system, and monitored closely by the subject leader. 

Impact

Pupil Voice (March 2022):

Carried out by subject leader

'Neil Armstrong went to the moon' - Robins Class

'Old steam trains are petrol trains now' - Robins Class

'I know that there are Stone Keep castles, Concentric castles and Motte and Bailey castles.'  - Swallows Class

'My favourite History lesson this term was when I learnt about Dover Castle. It was built on the top of a big hill and has secret underground tunnels that were used as a hospital during the war'. - Swallows Class

'The Roman army was the strongest army due to their intense training and they weren't allowed to marry so that they were focused on the military' - Owls Class

'The Ancient Maya civilisation were located in Mexico which was part of Mesoamerica' - Owls Class