History

Intent: Our vision for History

At St. Teresa’s our vision is ‘to shape our children to become the leaders of tomorrow’ and we believe that providing rich knowledge and skills focused on the History curriculum will develop our pupils to be the change of tomorrow. At St. Teresa’s we intend to deliver the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework and national curriculum in an exciting, memorable way. Through our topic based curriculum children will:

• Gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world which helps to stimulate pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past;
• Ask questions, think critically, evaluate evidence and artefacts, discuss arguments, and develop perspectives and opinions;
• Begin to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
• Raise a pupils’ cultural capital and develop connections through learning about a range of diverse people and significant events throughout history.

Implementation: How we teach History

The Cornerstones Curriculum is used throughout the School. This includes cross-curricular topics added by the school to ensure coverage of the history curriculum and to reflect our school’s values and locality. Across the chosen topic areas, children will be expected to remember key people, events, vocabulary and dates. The history curriculum is based on 4 stages of teaching and learning: Engage, Develop, Innovate and Express.

The history projects are well sequenced to provide a coherent subject scheme that develops children’s historical knowledge, skills and subject disciplines. As children progress through St. Teresa’s, they will gain a greater understanding of key aspects and concepts, such as chronology, cause and effect, similarity and difference, significance and hierarchy, which will be revisited throughout all projects and are developed over time. A progression of skills map is used to ensure that historical skills are covered and developed throughout their learning journey in St. Teresa’s. Developing a pupils’ historical skills and knowledge will help equip them with transferable skills as they move into higher education and beyond.

We use memorable experiences specifically planned and designed to help captivate and enthral children. A variety of historical sources, such as artefacts and pictures will be provided, to enable children to find out more about the past in practical and meaningful ways.

Assessment is an integral part of ensuring an effective teaching and planning process in history. At the start and end of each topic a pre and post assessment is carried out to ensure progression takes place within a topic. Lessons are adapted using pupil’s starting points to inform planning, identify gaps in learning and facilitate differentiation. Children receive oral feedback and challenging questions to help assess their historical knowledge and skills.

Where children may need additional help, we provide appropriate additional resources to remove barriers to participation. Help and resources to develop key vocabulary; adult support and a breakdown of tasks or activities into achievable steps are also used to keep children on track.

Impact:

The impact of providing a topic-based curriculum is that children have engaged with knowledge rich learning experiences. They have shown what they have learnt in a variety of innovative ways including holding events and assemblies to share their knowledge, completing project work, producing creative work and more. Our children are becoming equipped with the necessary historical skills and knowledge for them to be successful, analytical, empathetic, confident, questioning citizens of the future with a deepened understanding of the world in which they live.

Pupil interviews, scrutinising books and monitoring planning reveal that teaching is high quality and shows progression. We also compare work from different year groups and key stages to ensure that historical skills and concepts are being built upon each year and children have regular opportunities to recall learning from previous topics.

Curriculum strengths:

• Memorable experiences through engaging history lessons, trips, visitors and carefully chosen themed topics.
• Development of children’s substantive and disciplinary knowledge in history.
• Knowledge rich and skills focused learning.
• High quality teaching and subject knowledge.
• Supporting children’s understanding of key historical concepts.
• Helping children to become leaders of tomorrow by engaging them in the past.

Our community & families:

The involvement of families and the wider community to help support the teaching of history is widely encouraged. Parents and members of the school community with an interest, or expertise, in a specific area of history are warmly welcomed to support the children’s learning at St. Teresa’s.

The support that Parents and carers provide in supporting their children at home with topic-based home learning is recognised and valued at St. Teresa’s. History home learning tasks are well communicated and have a clear purpose, often providing children with the means to research and explore a topic to support their classroom work.

Diversity:

Our history curriculum reflects the ethos & aims of the St. Teresa’s as well as represent, value and celebrate the diverse school community. Our curriculum ensures that all pupils learn about a diverse range of key individuals and significant events in history. We strive to plan around race, gender, ethnicity, social justice and faith in order to provide a balanced, diverse and enriched curriculum.

Our history curriculum provides the building blocks to develop the necessary historical knowledge & skills, whilst also promoting British values, mental well-being and excellent behaviour & attitudes.