At Egglescliffe CE Primary School, History is held in high regard, due to the school’s location. At Egglescliffe, we believe that high-quality, immersive history lessons inspire children to have a broad and balanced view of history, whilst also allowing them to think critically and gain a deeper knowledge of important events both in Britain and the wider world. In turn we will support the children in retaining and developing their knowledge throughout their time at Egglescliffe CE Primary and in preparation for later years.
Intent
At Egglescliffe CE Primary School, History is held in high regard, due to the school’s location. At Egglescliffe, we believe that high-quality, immersive history lessons inspire children to have a broad and balanced view of history, whilst also allowing them to think critically and gain a deeper knowledge of important events both in Britain and the wider world. In turn we will support the children in retaining and developing their knowledge throughout their time at Egglescliffe CE Primary and in preparation for later years.
At Egglescliffe, we intend to support our pupils’ growth as Historians through:
- to instil in the children a curiosity and understanding of events, places and the role of significant people
- encouraging the children to ask questions and develop their own lines of enquiry when finding out about the
- past
- encouraging the children to embrace challenging and thought-provoking activities and research
- developing the children’s interest in the past and helping them to understand how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
- to provide opportunities for the children to gain a historically grounded understanding of vocabulary such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
- to develop an understanding of 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 develop the children’s’ understanding of the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
- developing the ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate
- developing the ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ opinions using historical evidence from a wide range of resources
- to encourage the children to make connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and longterm timescales
Implementation
At Egglescliffe we implement a progressive History curriculum throughout the whole school, through high standards of teaching and learning. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) follows the ‘Development Matters in the EYFS’ guidance which aims for all children in Reception to have an ‘Understanding of the World; people and communities, the world and technology’ by the end of the academic year. In KS1 and KS2, topics are blocked together in order to allow the children to immerse themselves further into their topic in order to further their understanding and learning. This also allows the teachers to take full advantage of seasonal opportunities in the local area.
Impact
The overall impact of this is that all children are equipped with historical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world. We want the children to enjoy and be excited about history and to develop the skills to be Historians which encouraging them to be curious about the world around them and question the how and why.
