History

Curriculum Overview

'History will judge us by the difference we make in the

everyday lives of children'

Nelson Mandela 

Intent

At Banstead Infant School, we believe that our fun, engaging and inclusive history lessons will inspire children to be curious about the past and to think and act as historians. We aim for our children to engage in real life experiences, recreating events and times from the past, linked to a range of topics. Through these exciting first-hand experiences the children have opportunities to develop a sense of curiosity about the past, reflecting on how and why people interpret the past in different ways. We develop children to become independent and evaluative thinkers who have empathy for how others lived. This will develop an awareness, respect and curiosity for different cultures and societies and the past. Children develop their critical thinking skills and are challenged to communicate their thoughts and opinions in a creative way. We aim for the children to develop a sense of their own identity and to build a chronological framework for the people and events we study, thinking about the similarities and differences of these times. Through our teaching of history, we aim to give our children the skills to think, reflect, debate and to evaluate the past with the knowledge they acquire to become the best historians that they can be.

In Early Years Foundation Stage, Understanding the world, children at the expected level of development will:

• Talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society;
• Know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
• Understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling.

In Key Stage 1 the National Curriculum for History aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know about Changes within living memory - where appropriate these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life.
• Discuss events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally (e.g. Great Fire of London)
• Ask and answer questions, choosing and using parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of events.
• Learn about significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

Implementation

Teachers plan collaboratively using the National Curriculum and our history progression map when creating their medium term plans. Our curriculum is designed on a base of skills and knowledge that we want our children to learn in History. We then deliver these skills and knowledge through our topics, which we select to excite and motivate our children.

The subject progression map ensures that History is taught in a logical sequence and makes links with the children’s previous learning across the school. This allows them to build on their skills across the year groups.

In the Early Years, Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people and places. We support this through discussion, play and practical application so that our children can demonstrate that they can talk about past events in their lives and lives of family members.

In Key Stage One History is taught through our topics and is integrated into other curriculum areas for meaningful learning opportunities when appropriate. By revisiting concepts with increasing levels of depth in lessons and as children move through our school, we will enable the children to understand key vocabulary, develop fluency and to form relevant links which will help to embed knowledge. For our children meaningful historical links are made through personal and significant events, plus wider community and global historical events are marked throughout the year e.g. Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day etc.

We use historical artefacts to excite and intrigue our children to find out more about events and people from the past. We aim to give our children as much understanding as possible about what it was like to be around at a particular period in history by having practical and experiential lessons where possible. It is fundamental that we establish prior learning as a starting point for teaching and that retrieval practise is built into lessons. We seek to embed history learning as we do not want our children to simply memorise disconnected facts.

Impact

History at Banstead Infants is assessed in a variety of ways to check children’s knowledge and understanding. High quality teaching and stimulating activities are planned to be accessible to all children, taking into account different abilities and learning styles. Learning is recorded in a number of ways. For example, children express what they have learnt through art, role play, writing and drama.

We strive for all our children to become the best historians they can be, by demonstrating they can...

• Talk confidently about not only events in their own lives, but also about the lives of significant others in the past.
• Confidently use sources and artefacts to help them develop their historical enquiry skills.
• Use key vocabulary when talking about significant events from the past and the impact that they had on today’s society.
• Reflect and evaluate key events from the past and their significance.

If you were to walk into a History lesson at Banstead Infant School you would see: 

• Children reflecting and thinking critically about the past, asking questions to support and develop their historical understanding further.
• Opportunities for children to discuss their opinions alongside peers, using evidence to support them.
• Cross-curricular learning taking place. Children may be taking part in different activities linked to other areas of the curriculum, for example art activities.

“The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future” Theodore Roosevelt

Subject Progression Map