At St Patrick’s, the History Curriculum develops children’s knowledge of historical periods, events and significant individuals. Children learn key facts and concepts alongside skills such as chronological understanding, how to analyse and evaluate historical evidence, how to empathise with people from different eras and how to compare and contrast life in different periods.
History and Geography Topics
History progression document
National Curriculum for History
History Concepts Progression
History Curriculum Narrative
Intent
At St Patrick’s we recognise History is all around us; in our families with their unique backgrounds, cultures, traditions and in our local and wider communities. Our intent, when teaching History is to stimulate pupils’ curiosity as historians about the past, develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of the complexity of people’s lives and the process of change.
We aim to offer a high-quality history education that will support pupils in developing a passion for learning and gain an understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
Implementation
Our bespoke curriculum ensures History is taught through age-appropriate, relevant and exciting schemes of learning. As a school within Bishop Hogarth Catholic Educational trust, we discreetly teach a KS1 and KS2 scheme of work designed by a transition team of primary school staff and subject specialists from our trust secondary schools which draw on the guidance from the National Curriculum.
This means our curriculum allows a clear progression in the acquisition of knowledge and for key skills, building on pupils’ prior learning.
Each unit of work has a clear rationale, key topic vocabulary, builds on pupils’ prior learning and defines the minimum knowledge and skills (end points) that pupils will learn. Assessment strands in topics allow pupils to demonstrate their learning and the knowledge companions that we call ‘Learn it! Link It! help pupils to remember the key elements of the topic.
Driven by creative approaches and the development of pupils’ culture capital, we make full use of opportunities for ‘real world’ learning. We plan educational visits to bring our schema to life and develop a long-lasting enjoyment of History. Examples of this include living history trips, museum visits and visitor enrichment opportunities. We encourage the use of artefacts, primary sources, and digital technology to support learning where appropriate and available.
To address the local context, our scheme includes:
the development of the railways from Stockton to Darlington, and Captain Cook as a key explorer as well as opportunities to visit local Roman forts to develop knowledge of Roman life in Britain.
Our curriculum includes opportunities to make links to local history where we can.
Impact
The outcomes in History books evidence a broad and balanced history curriculum and demonstrate the pupil’s acquisition of key knowledge and topic, ‘end points’. Progress will be evident in their history work and an assessment task linked to their relevant ‘Learn-it -Link it’ booklets or specific writing tasks.
When pupils leave our school, they will know more, remember more, and understand more about History. They will have developed an enjoyment, secure knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from the historical periods covered and they will have firm foundations and confidence as developing historians at KS3.