Intent

Our History Curriculum embodies our values of:

Personal Excellence by ensuring the children make progress in the knowledge and skills to challenge and make opinions about events in history.

Respect and Friendship by ensuring children know how history has shaped our culture, creativity and relationships

Inspiration by engaging and inspiring  the children to be investigative and critical about history

Determination and Courage by challenging children and encouraging them to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of history

Equality by using history of different cultures to inspire, engage and challenge the children.

We incorporate, wherever possible, the work within the topics making links with other curriculum areas. The children are encouraged to reflect upon and evaluate their sources and that of others to enable them to develop their ideas and reason.

Implementation

At Halstead Community Primary School children in key stage 1 will be taught:

·       changes within living memory. Where appropriate, these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life

·       events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally [for example, the Great Fire of London, the first aeroplane flight or events commemorated through festivals or anniversaries]

·       the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods [for example, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong, William Caxton and Tim Berners-Lee, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and LS Lowry, Rosa Parks and Emily Davison, Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell]

·       significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

Then in key stage 2 the children will be taught to develop their techniques, including their control and their use of materials, with creativity, experimentation and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design. This will involve teaching children:

·       changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age

·       the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain

·       Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots

·       the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor

·       a local history study

Key skills and knowledge for History have been mapped across the school to ensure progression across the key stages in two year cycles. The lessons are taught as part of the topic units of work through the International Primary Curriculum.

Impact

Through our History curriculum, the children will:

·       produce work, exploring their ideas and recording their findings

·       become proficient in understanding historical events in context and chronology

·       evaluate and challenge sources using the language of history

·       know about key historical figures and events and their place in history.

Therefore, our curriculum will engage children and develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of historical events and key people and being critical of the sources they look at.