St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School History

At St John the Baptist, we aim to provide our students with a rigorous History curriculum that instils them with the key skills and knowledge to gain an in depth and critical understanding of the past. The school wide History curriculum is purposefully constructed to allow children to make links between topics and have a good chronological awareness of the past.

We want our students to leave St John the Baptist with enquiring minds that have a thirst for learning about the past and analyse it with a critical and open mind.

At St John the Baptist, out History curriculums ensures that all pupils

• Have a secure chronological understanding of local, British and World History from the Stone Age up to the present day. The depth of chronological studies progresses through the year groups.

• Understand historical domains by carrying out their own historical enquiries, recognising similarities and differences, drawing contrasts, asking and answering questions.

• Can articulate how a significant event/person, leader, civilisation, movement (migration/invasion) and modern history have impacted society (strands).

• Evaluate and analyse a range of primary and secondary sources.

• Can collate all of their acquired knowledge and understanding to form their own opinions, and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives.

• Gain a historically grounded understanding of abstract and subject specific terms, and be able to use these confidently.

At St John the Baptist, our History topics are planned on a two year rolling program (Reception; Year 1 and Year 2; Year 3 and Year 4; Year 5 and Year 6). This allows for good use of shared resources and planning and enrichment activities.

We ensure that our staff have secure subject knowledge and are aware of what learning needs to take place. We use a wide range of curriculum based mediums to share knowledge. Each lesson is planned to ensure skills and knowledge are progressive. This ensures that we are best placed to provide the children the opportunities to experience new learning, based on the History National Curriculum.

Our teachers have a clear understanding of their pupils prior learning and plan appropriately. Our educators ensure the Learning Objective and steps to success are explicitly communicated to our learners, prior to each lesson. As a class, we identify and clarify key vocabulary throughout each unit of study, this helps the children to not only understand any new words and their meanings, but also enhances their ability to speak like Historians.

Our teachers model outcomes so that students are aware at all times of the work that is expected of them. We also provide scaffolds, so that each and every student has the ability to access the learning and achieve. The children will have access to both physical and digital historical resources to ensure meaningful and challenging learning. Our historians will be given a variety of experiences both in and out of the classroom where appropriate to create memorable learning opportunities and to further support and develop their understanding.

At St John the Baptist, our History curriculum is a rigorous approach to teaching the subject. Our children develop a sound overview of the past and the ability to analyse it with a critical mind. Our class work shows how our enquiry-based approach gives real purpose and focus to each topic; each lesson planned carefully to meet our overall learning objective. Our rigorous curriculum map shows a whole school curriculum that has been planned carefully to teach the main historical concepts through a range of contexts in a way that creates links between periods and events. Children will be able to make links to previously studied topics and make comparisons

Moreover, at St John the Baptist School, Pupil voice shows that pupils are confident and able to talk about what they have learnt in history using subject specific vocabulary. Pupil voice also demonstrates that pupils enjoy history and are able to recall their learning over time. Pupils work demonstrates that history is taught at an age appropriate standard across each year group with opportunities planned in for pupils working at greater depth. Work is of good quality and demonstrates pupils are acquiring knowledge, skills and vocabulary in an appropriate sequence.