History

Our History Curriculum 

Intent

At St Nicolas’ we aim to provide a broad, balanced and differentiated history curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to develop a love for history.

Furthermore, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about history that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

History teaching at St Nicolas’ is relevant to everyday life, teaching the children to enjoy learning about the past and to have a better understanding of the society in which they live.

Aim for pupils:

• To provide a high-quality history education which will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

• To develop a sense of chronology.

• It will inspire pupils’ curiosity and develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer.

• History teaching equips 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.

• To enable children to know about significant events and people in history and to appreciate how things have changed over time.

• To help children understand society and their place within it, so that they develop a sense of their cultural heritage.

• To develop in children the skills of enquiry, investigation, analysis, evaluation, debate, interpretation, problem solving and presentation.

Implementation

Our history curriculum is fun, exciting and engaging to capture children’s imagination. Teachers deliver history through a variety of teaching methods incorporating visual, auditory and practical learnings to meet the needs of all pupils. All learning will start by revisiting prior knowledge. This will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. Staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. At the start of each lesson, prior learning is revised using our live feedback grids and misconceptions are addressed to ensure children have embedded the learning from the previous session. Subject specific vocabulary is provided to the children and displayed around the classroom along with key questions and facts. Modelled examples of work are also displayed to demonstrate high expectations to the pupils. 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.

Impact

The successful approach to teaching history at St Nicolas', provides pupils with fun, creative, high-quality and engaging lessons that give children the foundations for history which they can take with them once they have completed their primary education. This is demonstrated through pupil voice where they are 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. Live feedback grids will show how pupils have engaged with the lesson and have understood any misconceptions.