At Consett Infant School, we believe that high-quality history lessons inspire children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians. The history curriculum is intended, to enable children to acquire an understanding of time and of events and people in their and their parents’ and Grandparents living memory and outside of living memory. We have chosen topics the children are interested in and develop their vocabulary skills as well as their skills as an historian. Young children have very little concept of time, so we have devised a curriculum which starts at events in their own personal history and then moves back in decades to their parents’ and grandparents’ histories. In Key Stage 1, the aim is for pupils to handle artefacts, listen to first-hand evidence and testimony, look at photographs and pictures and to watch video clips to gather information together about the past.
- An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from a range of historical periods, including significant events in Britain’s past;
- Learning about the concept of chronology, which underpins children’s developing sense of period.
- The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas confidently to a range of audiences;
- The ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using historical evidence from a range of sources;
- The ability to think, reflect, discuss and evaluate the past by formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry;
- A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make critical use of it to support their learning;
- A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics;
- A developing sense of curiosity about the past and how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
As part of this planning process, teachers plan the following:
- A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth
- Challenge questions for pupils to apply their learning in a philosophical/open manner
- Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience
Our History Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes
- By looking at the evidence in children’s books and class big books
- Pupil discussions about their learning
Please see attached the Progression Maps for History
