HISTORY
Intent
At Belgrave, our intent is to ensure that:
Children have a clear understanding of British history, ancient civilisations and non-European societies and how the past has influenced the present. They are able to apply their knowledge to different contexts to understand the connections between local, regional, national and international history.
Learners demonstrate a high level of oracy in history, and can accurately use key abstract terms including empire, civilisation, parliament, and peasantry.
Children have a conceptual understanding of key historical concepts such as; continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance.
Learners understand how to think like a historian, use evidence to make historical claims, think critically and analytically, and understand why people have different opinions or viewpoints.
Children understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change and the diversity of societies and beliefs whilst celebrating these differences.
Curriculum
Our history curriculum is progressive and relevant, with important concepts threaded through units throughout the school to develop children’s understanding of abstract terms. Each history unit has a main enquiry question (See our History journey). Every lesson in the unit has a key question for the children to focus on which builds on their knowledge. High quality retrieval tasks check understanding throughout a topic, and an end of unit assessment, answering the main enquiry question for the unit, ensures that pupils have knowledge required for future learning.
Cross Curricular Links
The skills and knowledge the children use in History complement those in the rest of the curriculum. These are just some of the ways that History links to other areas of their study:
Art & Design or Design & Technology projects are usually linked to the history unit if appropriate.
1:1 iPads are used to support all learning in history. Children use a variety of apps and have access to the internet to carry out independent research or to look at artefacts related to a particular time. They can then present their findings creatively.
During most history units, children will need to understand where in the world events happened or civilisations lived. Maps are often used to illustrate this, and compared to modern day maps to show how the world has changed.
Chronology is covered in all history units which links with timelines and knowing where dates are on a timeline. Children need a good understanding of number to order and compare when different events or civilisations occurred/existed.
Each year group reads at least one text which has been based on their history topic. Opportunities during history lessons for children to read, reading research from secondary sources or reading primary sources. Class libraries have a history section for any books that link to history topics.
Children learn about significant scientists who link with their science units and the impact they have had on the development of our understanding in science.
Children produce two pieces of extended writing in English lessons based on the text they have studied. Children will produce a purposeful piece of writing during a history unit which demonstrates them using history skills – such as explaining or comparing/contrasting.
Enquiry Skills
History skills are key parts of children becoming historians! At Belgrave, we ensure that children do not just learn the historical knowledge and facts about the past, but they also learn how to work and think like a historian. To be able to develop children’s enquiry skills, Belgrave’s history skills wheel is shared with learners at the beginning of each lesson and is present on all history working walls. Children will then understand how historians work and they can use specific skills to enhance their history learning. The history skills that children use at Belgrave are: Using sources, comparing and contrasting, explaining, asking questions, using chronology and carrying out historical enquiries.
Skills Wheel
View Our History Journey
