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
- To 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
- To 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
- To gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
- To 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
- To 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
- To 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.
The History Curriculum at Walmsley C of E Primary School aims to spark the curiosity within each child. We strive to excite the pupils within our school, with interesting topics and outstanding teaching. We aim to develop an understanding of British history and that of the wider world. We are determined to ensure every pupil gains an understanding of chronology as well as a knowledge and understanding of how the local area has changed over time. The children are given the opportunity to examine, interpret and evaluate a variety of sources in order to make deductions about the past. They are taught to think and behave as historians. Our children are given opportunities to develop their historical understanding through their own questioning. As a school, it is our intention to insure that pupils are able to investigate how and why the world has changed as well as what we can learn from the past to make the future a better place. British Values are woven into the History curriculum promoting values such as Mutual Respect, Tolerance and Individual Liberty. Themed days, visitors and school trips are used within the History curriculum to develop a deeper understanding of the time periods studied and to inspire the children so that they have a lifelong love of History.