History

History Lead – Mrs L Hardman

At Lowerplace, our aim is to focus on delivering a high-quality history education that will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world. We particularly focus on events and people that are relevant to the history of our local area and community and its impact on our lives today. History generates and inspires pupils’ curiosity to know more about past events. When teaching history teachers ensure that children are provided with opportunities to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop a perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups. It also helps children gain a sense of their own identify within a social, political, cultural and economic background.

Our history curriculum is designed to excite the children and allow them to develop their own skills as historians. We encourage regular reference to timelines as well as a hands-on approach involving access to a range of primary and secondary sources of information to bring history to life for our learners.

Our history curriculum develops the children’s skills and knowledge in the following areas

• Chronology and Causation
• Historical Enquiry
• Historical Significance and Interpretation

In EYFS the children learn

• the difference between long ago and now, old and new and how their life is different from the lives of people in the past
• to ask and answer questions about stories, characters and books that are set in the past
• that many of the things we use today would have been different in the past and why something has changed between now and the past

In KS1 the children learn

• the difference between long ago and very long ago, to use simple timelines, organise artefacts from oldest to newest, and about important people and events from the past
• to ask and answer questions about the past and how we find out about the past including the use artefacts and pictures
• the similarities and differences between different times
• the positive impact of some inventions on our lives and the contribution of people from the past on national and international achievements

In KS2 the children learn

• to use appropriate chronology terms e.g. BC, AD and learn about history from the Stone Age to Modern Day
• how to order significant events and dates on a timeline and to demonstrate changes and developments in culture, technology, religion and society, making connections, contrasts and trends over time.
• to use a variety of resources to collect information about the past and the differences between primary and secondary sources of evidence
• to investigate their own lines of enquiry by asking historically valid questions and the challenges faced by some societies and why they changes over time
• to compare different versions of events form the past and identify the differences, the impact of the past on our lives today and why we need to use a wide range of evidence and check the reliability and accuracy of evidence.

At Lowerplace the children study a new unit of work each term. Each unit of work is broken down into five separate components that make up the lessons in this topic. Knowledge organisers for each topic outline the key knowledge and vocabulary that children will learn. We expected that children we be able to remember and retain the key information that they have leant. In order to support them in doing this, retrieval activities are a regular and key part of our lessons, helping children to remember what they have already learnt and make links form this to their new learning.

Lowerplace History Annual Curriculum Overview

Lowerplace History Progression of Skills and Knowledge

Resources

At Lowerplace we have a range of resources to support the children in learning the key skills and knowledge linked to our History curriculum. These include books, photos and artefacts. We also regularly borrow resources from Touchstones museum to supplement our own resources. Children also have the opportunity to go on a variety of school trips to support their learning.