Intent

At Bierton, our main goal is for pupils to develop a deep knowledge and understanding of the history and heritage of our local community, country and the wider world. Through coherently planned sequences of lessons, we want to ensure that pupils progressively cover the skills and concepts required in the National Curriculum. We aim to develop children’s understanding of substantive concepts, which are revisited throughout different units. Historical enquiry skills are built upon progressively throughout the units and include: historical interpretations; historical investigations; chronological understanding; knowledge and understanding of events and people in the past; presenting, organising and communicating; and historical vocabulary. In addition to this, progression of disciplinary concepts are also woven into units and include: continuity and change; cause and consequence; similarities and differences; and historical significance.  

 We want to ensure that learning is engaging and actively promotes an understanding of key historical events, covering both knowledge and skills. We aim to inspire children’s curiosity through a broad, exciting and diverse humanities curriculum based on enquiry and exploration. This encourages them to become independent, lifelong learners and to promote the enquiry of local, national and global issues. 

 The coverage of history in KS1, enables children to acquire an understanding of time, events and people within their own living memory as well as their parents’ and grandparents’ memories. For KS1, children need to be given the opportunity to really grasp the difficult concept of the passing of time. Therefore, in Y1, children will start with a unit that links to the end of their learning in EYFS – dinosaurs. By looking at Mary Anning and her work with dinosaur fossils, children can start to recognise the differences between pre-historic times and the more modern past; helping with the understanding of the passing of time. As they move into Y2, they will look at units that follow on from that period of time including more recent history.  

 In KS2, the intent is that children work in chronological order from Y3 to Y6 on the core British history study units taken from the National Curriculum, starting with ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’ in Y3 and then progressing onto more modern history in Y5 with the ‘Victorian Britain. This will be repeated for ancient history, starting with ‘Ancient Egyptians’ in Y3, moving on to ‘The Romans’ in Y4; ‘Maya Civilisation’ in Y5 and finally ‘Scots to Anglo-Saxons to Vikings’ and ‘Ancient Greeks’ in Y6. The aim is for children to truly develop and embed a sense of time; understand how civilisations were interconnected and to be exposed to a diverse range of history topics. Pupils gain knowledge in understanding Britain’s past and its links to the present day. Where possible, units are planned to include strong, rich historical links to our local area with planned opportunities for learning outside of the classroom, including trips and visitors, maximising the use of our surroundings and local area.  

 We encourage fascination about the world and its people, ensuring that an understanding of diversity is further embedded by studying significant individuals and events that have shaped our world throughout the year groups - helping to promote children’s aspirations for themselves. We intend to inspire all children to excel and ‘let their light shine’ in history and adapt our teaching and learning to suit their needs. We have incorporated units into KS1 with a focus on inspiring women in non-traditional roles such as Mary Anning (palaeontologist) and Amy Johnson (pilot) alongside units on significant women for their times (Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale). Building upon this, the ‘Explorers’ unit in Year 4, extends the diversity of significant individuals, incorporating both past and modern explorers, who have come experienced various forms prejudice such as racism and sexism. This is rounded off with the Year 5 unit on ‘Black and British’. This long-term thematic study consolidates pupils’ chronological grasp of the long arc of 2000 years, it also allows them to experience periods they would not otherwise have studied. These include: the Tudors; 17th and 18th centuries; and post World War Two Britain. There is an even stronger reason for studying this topic now against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and media coverage of race-related issues. It is essential that pupils build a well-informed appreciation of the issues concerning race, using their knowledge of changing attitudes to Black people in Britain. Key concepts will be experienced, as a good preparation for KS3. These include: empire; migration; exploration; exploitation, slavery trade, discrimination and intermarriage. 

Implement

Pupils need to develop both substantive and disciplinary concepts as they progress through the curriculum. Children’s understanding of substantive concepts are developed and are revisited throughout different units. In addition to this, progression of disciplinary concepts are also woven into units and include: continuity and change; cause and consequence; similarities and differences; and historical significance.  

 Secure substantive knowledge supports the learning of disciplinary knowledge and the acquisition of further knowledge. Historical enquiry skills enable both substantive and disciplinary thinking to be developed simultaneously. Historical enquiry skills are built upon progressively throughout the units and include: historical interpretations; historical investigations; chronological understanding; knowledge and understanding of events and people in the past; presenting, organising and communicating; and historical vocabulary. 

 At the start of a new unit, knowledge organisers are created for each unit but to be truly useful, they need to be as interactive as possible so that pupils see the need to use them. Pupils will need to refer quite frequently to the timeline (and often to a map) so there is an emphasis on putting the historical period into context of world history as well as showing important events of the unit in chronological order. Having the keywords in alphabetical order with simple definitions is also key as well as the ‘top takeaways’- the main learning points pupils need to have mastered by the end of the topic.  

 Using the Keystage History scheme, lessons use historical enquiry skills to develop substantive and disciplinary thinking. There is a focus on information gathering, thinking creatively, enquiry, reasoning and, evaluating. A lesson will often flow as follows: 

•  Stage 1: Hooking them in (where pupils are motivated by some sort of hook);  
• Stage 2: Gathering information (pupils are engaged in imaginative ways of finding new information)  
• Stage 3: Processing the information (pupils start to organise the information they have found)                                                          
• Stage4: Making meaning (pupils apply their newly found information to a specific question so that they transform knowledge into  understanding; They are given opportunities to show how they are thinking and what their views are).  
• Stage 5: Refined thinking (pupils need to re-think and improve on some of their early ideas in light of new information fed in and need to think how they are going to communicate their understanding, If pupils are to write an explanatory account, it is important that  they see how one has been successfully constructed, either by a textbook or by another pupil).  
• Stage 6: Producing the final product (This is not always required to be substantial written work but make what the pupils do of real value;  give opportunities for pupils to communicate their understanding by offering them a choice of imaginative products).  

 At the start of a lesson, the teacher should use timeline questioning to recap chronological understanding and context. They should review any vocabulary they have learnt. The Keystage History scheme ensures that the knowledge and skills being covered in that lesson are being explicitly taught and should be referred to within the lesson. Additionally, any new vocabulary needs to be explicitly taught and defined. Any knowledge taught should be taught with reference to linked knowledge they have already learnt. This knowledge could be knowledge they learnt that year or in a previous year.  

Impact

Pupils can recall previous knowledge and are prepared for the next stage of their learning.  They have an understanding of key historical events and people and how they have made an impact on our world. They are able to make links between events and significant people in history with the values of our school. Children have a sound understanding of chronology and develop a range of skills: thinking independently; asking questions; making links; written and verbal explanations; recognising similarities and differences between different periods in history.  They can analyse a range of source materials to promote evidence about the past and from this they can record their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding in a range of ways using dates and key terms appropriately.  Pupils enjoy history lessons and are confident to discuss and demonstrate their knowledge with others. They are able to talk confidently about their learning using appropriate and technical vocabulary and can read, spell and pronounce historical vocabulary accurately. Children demonstrate an appreciation of history and talk confidently about a range of periods throughout history; applying their knowledge to other areas of learning as well as to the world around them. Their love of learning will inspire and motivate them to study history further in their future education. will be seen across the school with an increase in the profile of history and the visibility of progression in the history curriculum. The learning environment across the school will be more consistent - with historical technical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. We want to ensure that history is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to want to continue building on this wealth of historical knowledge and understanding, now and in the future.