History

"We are not makers of history. We are defined by history." Dr Martin Luther King

INTENT:

Our History curriculum ensures children are able to act as Historians and ensures that they have developed a clear knowledge of the History taught. The children will have:

• An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.

• The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.

• The ability to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence    derived from a range of sources.

• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.

• A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.

• A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments.

• A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.

IMPLEMENTATION:

Our academy uses aspects of the Essentials Curriculum (C. Quigley). Our history curriculum will be achieved by following 4 key threshold concepts.

• Investigate and interpret the past
• Build an overview of world history
• Understand chronology
• Communicate historically

These concepts will be revisited multiple times in a progressive way, each time building on the previous knowledge and key vocabulary in the form of “milestones”

We recognise that learning happens when building on prior knowledge so we use the following knowledge areas to build schemas and therefore allow children to revisit what they have learnt before but applying it to a new context.

IMPACT

Our pupils will feel empowered to construct arguments of their own and to support these with a range of reliable resources. Pupils will be able to think critically and challenge their views and those of others in order to be analytical and to question information with skill and confidence. Our pupils will have a respect and an empathy for the achievements and sacrifices made by individuals and groups in the past.