Intent
Our curriculum provides pupils with memorable experiences both in the classroom and beyond. We intend to foster the children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for History so that when they reach the end of their time at Sutton CP they are confident historians. We want our pupils to know about and explain key events in modern history, especially the ones that have shaped modern society, understanding that the past often influences the present and future. History enables children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. Furthermore, our children will learn about aspects of local, British and Ancient history.
Implementation
We have a personalised curriculum developed by the history lead and teachers based on the national curriculum and tailored towards the needs of our children and the local area.
Early Years history focuses on their family history and discussing the lives of others and their roles in society. They will also understand the past and compare characters from stories. Key Stage 1 focuses on studying a specific event, theme or individual and their impact on our world, also including a local history study. Key Stage 2 history focuses on local, British and World History. British History is taught in chronological order to give children a sense of chronology and the ability to make links between eras.
Lesson sequence:
- Retrieval - from previous year group
- Last lesson review
- Start new learning with a photograph or artefact stimulus - I see, I think, I wonder
- Enquiry question, breakdown of knowledge and introduce vocabulary
- Explain and teach
- Smaller tasks to embed learning
- Independent activity
- Review
Resources: Books, Historical Association, Topic boxes, Educational visits and speakers to enhance learning.
Each lesson begins with an opportunity for children to revisit prior knowledge and to see how links can be made between periods and people in history. A timeline is used to introduce each new ‘topic’ so children can place this in the correct era and have a sense of chronology and sequencing. Opportunities to think like a historian are built into learning to enable children to become critical thinkers.
How do we support SEN pupils? At Sutton CP we use a 'quality first' teaching approach to support all learners which may include - dual coding to add visual aspects to learning, vocabulary displayed on the learning wall and regularly referred to. Pre-teaching of vocabulary to identified children. Lessons also feature differentiated questioning to enable all children to think like a historian.
Impact
We hope that our History curriculum will enable children to demonstrate an interest in history and talk confidently about the different eras studied using using appropriate and technical vocabulary. We want our children to discover more about their local area and the wider world, to apply their history knowledge to other areas of their learning, to interpret resources with increasing confidence, to have a wide historical vocabulary and use historical terms to study and compare periods. We hope our children become confident critical thinkers and that the more they can learn about our past the better prepared they are for their future.
