In line with the EYFS and National Curriculum, at Great Rollright, we deliver a high-quality history education that will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It will inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. We also want pupils to develop skills including asking perceptive questions, thinking critically, weighing evidence, sifting arguments, and developing 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 identity within a social, political, cultural and economic background. An important element of this is the use of educational visits to enhance learning.
In the EYFS the children explore historical themes and content through the Understanding of the World strand of the EYFS curriculum which is delivered through the topics we cover. This involves guiding the children to develop sense of their immediate past, as well as their historical events important in the community, through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, and the key events.
In Years 1-6, history is taught in blocks throughout the year, so that children can achieve depth in their learning. Units have been carefully planned to ensure that key aspects are revisited and built upon throughout their history learning journey through the school. Our history curriculum is carefully planned to take into consideration strands of history as inspired by Key Stage History, such as ‘why events happened’ in KS1 or ‘understanding the significance of events’ in KS2. We have ensured that all of these strands have been covered through various different topics, making best use of thematic links where appropriate. The areas we plan to study have been placed onto a world map to ensure we have a balanced coverage of locations.
We have identified the key knowledge, vocabulary and skills of each blocked topic and consideration has been given to ensure progression of these across topics throughout each year group across the school.
During history lessons, children will draw comparisons and make connections between different time periods and their own lives. Cross curricular outcomes in history are specifically planned for, with strong links between the history curriculum and English lessons enabling further contextual learning. The local area is also utilised to enhance children’s history learning, with opportunities for learning outside the classroom through visits. We encourage regular references to timelines and how topics fit together as well as a hands-on approach involving artefacts and outreach programmes where appropriate so as to bring history alive to our young learners.