History Curriculum Intent

St Richards CE First School is committed to ensuring all children have full access to a high-quality historical education. By teaching our topics in a cross-curricular way, children have the opportunity to make links in their learning and have the opportunity to investigate and interpret the past, understand chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world and become historians in their thinking.

We aim for our History curriculum to inspire pupils’ curiosity about the past and to inspire a thirst for historical knowledge. We aim to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement. Through the teaching of History, we endeavour to teach children the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups as well as their own identity and the challenges presented over time. Where applicable, children will have encountered or participated in high-quality visits/visitors and artefacts to further appreciate the impact of History. 

In EYFS, historical learning begins in ‘Understanding the World’ where children begin to make sense of their local surroundings, community and the wider world. Children engage with a broad selection of fiction and non-fiction texts, rhymes and poems and learn and understand concepts such as past and present and talk about similarities and differences between people around them and their role in society. In each of the overarching half termly themes, children explore ideas relating to history and the passing of time.

The stories and language frames used allow modelling and repetition of phrases that help children understand the concepts of past and present and develop their vocabulary. 

In Key Stage 1, builds on the Early Years’ experience by investigating topics within living memory and the lives of significant individuals. The Historical skills will focus on the world around them and their living memory of History, such as how their lives are different to that of their grandparents or how our school has changed over time. We then move on to events that go beyond living memory. This will ensure a firm foundation for KS2 History. 

In Key Stage 2,  the History curriculum is set out in chronological order to allow children to reference the previous events in time and to refer to this prior learning year-on-year and within the year. Children can relate to and identify between societies, invasion and settlement by different groups. All time periods studied are added to a visual chronology to secure this understanding.

Purpose of study

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. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Aims

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

•  know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
•  know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
•  gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
•  understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
•  understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed

History lessons at St Richard's

Children are inspired to learn about Britain's past and that of the wider world through carefully chosen topics and themes.

Historical Terms

Substantive Knowledge – knowledge about the past (content)

Disciplinary Knowledge – knowledge about how historians investigate the past and construct claims, arguments, accounts

Substantive Concepts – abstract concepts such as invasion, empire, trade, monarchy. Pupils will explore wide ranging concepts across the curriculum but some will be more frequently encountered – these include: invasion and settlement, monarchy and civilisation and society. 

Disciplinary Concepts – develop pupils’ rational and critical thinking:

• Cause
• Consequence
• Change and continuity
• Similarity and difference
• Historical significance
• Sources and evidence
• Historical interpretations. 

Each History topic is developed to respond to an enquiry question which children will answer at the end of the study. 

History at St Richards CE First School

Children love learning History at St Richards and often go home and research more of the many wonderful things we have learned in school. Here are some examples of independent home research / learning.