Curriculum Subject Overview
Subject: History
Intent:
At Bramley Park Academy, we believe History is an important part of children’s development throughout school, right from an early age. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for History; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to develop a love for history. We intend on delivering a curriculum which:
- Develops a deepening understanding of history – chronologically, socially and politically
- Places historical events in the correct context and to interpret them reflectively
- Gives an understanding of the range of evidence available for the study of history, and how they can be used to analyse and interpret historical information
- Fosters a love of learning and curiosity about the past, both in Britain and in the wider world, and to share the lessons historians have learned from the study of past peoples and events.
- Gives each pupil a chance to BELIEVE in themselves as historians and develop the power of resilience and can PERSEVERE when faced with challenges.
- Engages all children and entitles them to the same quality of teaching and learning opportunities, striving to ACHIEVE their potential.
- Provides equal opportunities for children to apply their historical knowledge to other subjects (cross-curricular links).
- Is in line with the expectations in the National Curriculum 2014.
Implementation:
Our new and engaging approach to the curriculum is designed to develop children’s knowledge and understanding of all areas of the National Curriculum form the Early Years through to the end of Year 6. By linking learning to a range of topics, children have opportunities to investigate and interpret the past, understand chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world, and to be able to communicate historically. We develop children with the following essential characteristics to help them become historians:
- An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from a range of historical periods, including significant events in Britain’s past;
- 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, debate, 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.
- Our delivery of the history Curriculum is supported by a wide range of visits and experiences
Impact:
Our History curriculum starts the children off on a learning journey that ensures they are ready for their next steps at secondary school with the skills needed to be reflective and articulate as Historians. In addition, they leave our school with powerful memories from the wide range of experiences they have encountered here.
Our children leave Bramley Park Academy with a well-developed curiosity about people and events from the past, the skills needed to ask probing and reflective historical questions and to seek appropriate answers to them, and a sense of responsibility for their role in ensuring that past mistakes are not repeated.
Data
History assessment is ongoing in order to inform teachers with their planning, lessons and differentiation. Summative assessment is completed at the end of each unit in order to track progress and make middle leaders aware of the skills that require further improvement or embedding. Following the schools Quality Assurance monitoring cycle, history is monitored across all year groups following a range of strategies such as lesson observations, pupil voice and lesson observations.