History

Curriculum Leader: Katie Monckton

Mrs Monckton is our History Leader and is responsible for this curriculum area. This means ensuring we teach an ambitious curriculum, supporting our teachers to implement our curriculum through high-quality lessons and checking that lessons are helping our children to know more, remember more and do more.

Introduction

At Chiltern Primary School, we are committed to providing a high-quality education that empowers our students to become knowledgeable and engaged citizens. As part of the 2014 National Curriculum in England, our approach to teaching and learning encompasses a deep understanding and appreciation of history. In this website statement, we will outline our school's mission statement, our commitment to positive relationships, our focus on every child, and the resources we utilize, including the use of 'Curriculum Maestro' written by Cornerstones.

School Mission Statement: Making Learning Irresistible

Our school's mission statement, "Making Learning Irresistible," underpins every aspect of our educational philosophy. We believe that fostering a love for learning is crucial to enable our students to reach their full potential. Our approach to teaching history aligns with this mission, as we strive to make the subject engaging, relevant, and enjoyable for all our students.

Prioritizing Positive Relationships

At Chiltern Primary School, we prioritize the development of positive relationships between staff, students, and families. We recognize that creating a supportive and inclusive environment underpins effective teaching and learning. In the context of history education, this commitment to positive relationships involves encouraging open dialogue and the sharing of diverse perspectives. We believe that fostering respectful and collaborative relationships in the classroom helps to create an atmosphere where students feel comfortable to explore historical events, ask questions, and challenge their own understanding.

Championing Each and Every Child

We firmly believe in the potential of each and every child at Chiltern Primary School. Our approach to teaching history involves recognizing and celebrating the unique strengths and talents of our students. We aim to provide differentiated instruction that caters to individual learning styles, abilities, and interests. By tailoring our teaching methods, we can ensure that all students are actively engaged in their history learning journey, enabling them to achieve academic success and personal growth.

Utilizing 'Curriculum Maestro' by Cornerstones

To support the teaching of history and ensure a comprehensive coverage of the national curriculum, we utilize 'Curriculum Maestro' by Cornerstones. This robust and meticulously planned resource provides our teachers with a structured framework to deliver engaging history lessons that inspire and challenge our students. 'Curriculum Maestro' enables our educators to access a wide range of high-quality materials, including interactive resources, engaging texts, and hands-on activities. It also provides clear guidance on sequencing the curriculum and assessing students' progress, ensuring that our teaching remains both rigorous and responsive to individual needs.

Conclusion

At Chiltern Primary School, we take great pride in our approach to the teaching and learning of history. By ensuring positive relationships, championing each and every child, and utilizing resources like 'Curriculum Maestro' by Cornerstones, we strive to make our history lessons exciting, interactive, and meaningful. Through our commitment to excellence in education, we aim to equip our students with a strong historical knowledge base, critical thinking skills, and a lifelong passion for learning about the past.

Purpose of study

A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop 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, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Aims

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales

Units of Work

Year 1 Autumn

Childhood

This project teaches children about everyday life and families today, including comparisons with childhood in the 1950s, using artefacts and a range of different sources.

Year 1 Summer

Schools Days

This project teaches children about their own school and locality, both today and in the past. They compare schooling in the Victorian era to their experiences today.

Year 2 Autumn

Movers and Shakers

This project teaches children about historically significant people who have had a major impact on the world. They will learn to use timelines, stories and historical sources to find out about the people featured and use historical models to explore their significance.

Year 2 Summer

Magnificent Monarchs

This project teaches children about the English and British monarchy from AD 871 to the present day. Using timelines, information about royal palaces, portraits and other historical sources, they build up an understanding of the monarchs and then research six of the most significant sovereigns.

Year 3 Autumn

Through the Ages

This project teaches children about British prehistory from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, including changes to people and lifestyle caused by ingenuity, invention and technological advancement.

Year 3 Summer

Emperors and Empires

This project teaches children about the history and structure of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire, including a detailed exploration of the Romanisation of Britain.

Year 4 Autumn

Invasion

This project teaches children about life in Britain after the Roman withdrawal. Children will learn about Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions up to the Norman conquest.

Year 4 Summer

Ancient Civilisations

This project teaches children about the history of three of the world’s first ancient civilisations: ancient Sumer, ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley civilisation. Children will learn about the rise, life, achievements and eventual end of each civilisation.

Year 5 Autumn

Dynamic Dynasties

This project teaches children about the history of ancient China, focusing primarily on the Shang Dynasty, and explores the lasting legacy of the first five Chinese dynasties, some of which can still be seen in the world today.

Year 5 Summer

Groundbreaking Greeks

This project teaches children about developments and changes over six periods of ancient Greek history, focusing on the city-state of Athens in the Classical age, and exploring the lasting legacy of ancient Greece.

Year 6 Autumn

Maafa

This project teaches children about Africa past and present, with a particular focus on Benin. It traces the development of the slave trade and explores Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, the causes and consequences of the European colonisation of Africa and the worldwide communities that make up the African diaspora.

Year 6 Summer

Britain At War

This project teaches children about the causes, events and consequences of the First and Second World Wars, the influence of new inventions on warfare, how life in Great Britain was affected and the legacy of the wars in the post-war period.