Intent
At Tutshill Primary School, we value History as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. History provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills, and a chance to foster a sense of Cultural Diversity and Global Awareness. Through History, learners are given the chance to express their individual thoughts and ideas and demonstrate our school vision of love one another, know ourselves, believe and grow.
We offer a structure of lessons to help teachers ensure they have covered the content required to meet the aims of the national curriculum. The content allows for a broader, deeper understanding of the areas of History, including chronology, using sources, continuity and change. It will develop contextual knowledge of the history within living memory, key events and significant individuals and an understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. In History, children can carefully consider contrasting periods of time and how the past influences the present, including celebrating the differences and cultural diversity of our society today, building on their knowledge of British Values.
Through History, we use our core Christian Values of forgiveness, compassion, responsibility, respect, perseverance, courage and creativity to teach children how to respect and value the lives and ideas of others now and in the past. Children are encouraged to use their learning behaviours to take responsibility for creatively and innovatively applying historical skills and knowledge, whilst showing resilience and perseverance to overcome personal challenges.
Through the structure of the ABCDE learning model and our focus on Learning Behaviours, History will support the children in developing curiosity and a fascination of the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We intend to improve children’s historical vocabulary and historical skills, including using sources critically to understand different interpretations of the past. History is differentiated through our understanding of meta-cognition as an awareness of an individual’s own thought processes and ability to reflect on the way that they think and learn. All children are encouraged to reflect on the work they have produced and evaluate their understanding.
Implementation
The teaching and implementation of the History Curriculum at Tutshill C of E Primary School is based on the National Curriculum and follows the KeyStage History scheme for Years 1 to 6. It is designed with the key and substantive concepts in History as a basis: similarity and difference; continuity and change; cause and consequence; chronology; invasion; civilisation; settlement; power; trade; religion; empire; social class. The children are taught History for the equivalent of half of each long term, alternating with geography for equal coverage of the two subjects over the year.
When learning History at Tutshill, skills and knowledge are built up progressively and units of learning across each phase are sequential. Formal elements are woven through the units and key concepts are revisited again with increasing complexity and depth in a spiral curriculum model, to allow pupils to revise and build on previous learning.
Lessons follow the ABCDE teaching and learning model. History is taught in an inclusive way with adaptations being used as appropriate to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required.
Children in our EYFS class experience history learning through the Past and Present strand of Understanding the World. They learn to talk about the lives of people around them, recognise some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, and discuss the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling.
Impact
Children will have clear enjoyment and confidence in History that they will then be able to apply to other areas of the curriculum.
Children will ultimately know more, remember more and understand more about History, demonstrating this knowledge when talking about their own work and in their recorded work.
History subject assessments are completed three times a year, with teachers identifying those children working below, at and beyond expectations. Areas of strength and areas that pose challenge for individuals are highlighted. Teachers use this information to inform future lessons and to support children’s progress in learning, ensuring children are supported and challenged appropriately.
Children in Foundation Stage are assessed within the relevant sections of Understanding the World: Past and Present. Their progress is tracked termly using the Tapestry and Insight tracking system. Age related expectation levels are reported to parents at the end of the reception year.