History

Our school vision is ‘Explore, Dream, Discover: be the best that you can be’. Through studying history at Kirkoswald C of E School, pupils will work as historians to seek answers to the ‘big question’ about people and events in the past. We want to enable our pupils to learn from the past so that they better understand their lives today and empower them as active citizens of their future. Through the study of history pupils will develop a wide range of critical thinking skills, which enable them to understand the contested nature of knowledge and to distinguish between ‘fact’ and subjectivity when it comes to reaching conclusions and making judgements about the past. All pupils at Kirkoswald School are entitled to a history curriculum that is:

Aspirational as it instils in our pupils a desire to achieve the highest levels of success. We do this through providing pupils with the appropriate opportunities to build their substantive and disciplinary knowledge, master and apply subject concepts, skills and techniques and acquire the specialist language and technical terms to communicate their understanding effectively. Children are able to demonstrate their growing knowledge and understanding through the discussions that they have, the observations that they make as well as the written work they produce. Progressive and increasingly challenging objectives are presented in the medium-term plans (MTPs) of each enquiry, which define what the pupils will know, understand and be able to do at the end of each unit;

Coherent, relevant, broad and balanced in terms of the areas of subject content we have selected which reflect the guidance of the national curriculum. For example, we have ensured that content coverage includes both in depth investigations of the events of specific periods in the past as well as overview enquiries which give a greater sense of the chronology of continuity and change in particular themes and dimensions such as British Empire. In addition, we have ensured that in each phase of learning there is a strong element of enabling our pupils to appreciate the historical significance of people, places and events in their own local area;

Sequenced to ensure that pupils can build on their knowledge, skills and understanding. As we are a small school with mixed-age classes, we work on a two-year cycle. This means we are not always able to teach in chronological order, chronology is therefore explicitly taught to pupils and referred to. The curriculum is sequenced to ensure pupils have prior knowledge to tackle more complex and demanding enquiries. For example, Key Stage 1 pupils are introduced to the concepts of war and conflict (First World War), continuity and change (toys and games of the 1960s) and significant people, places and events locally, all of which they later build upon in Key Stage 2;

Progressive and more challenging EYFS through Year 6 both in terms of the complexity of the subject knowledge we want our pupils to acquire and also the disciplinary thinking skills we support them to master and apply to ensure they understand the significance of that knowledge. These anticipated outcomes in knowledge and understanding and skills’ acquisition are detailed in the objectives of the schemes of work of each enquiry and also appear alongside the end points of learning in the MTPs which inform each investigation. In terms of historical techniques, we ensure that our pupils are supported to examine and interpret primary sources of evidence right from the beginning of their studies in early years. We place a real emphasis on our pupils being able to distinguish between primary and secondary sources of information about the past and to understand the importance of critiquing these sources and question their validity and trustworthiness;

Continuity with the provision for History established in the EYFS and in particular that which addresses the knowledge and skills’ expectations of the Understanding the World area of learning and the Past and Present Early Learning Goal;

Inclusive in terms of delivering the same curriculum to all of our pupils and differentiating provision where necessary through, for example, in class support and assessment outcomes.

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