History

As historians, our INTENT is:

to inspire curiosity and enthusiasm to find out more about our past by delivering an exciting and engaging history curriculum. At Chawton CE Primary School, we are historians!

We want our children to love history, to have no limits to what their ambitions are and to grow up wanting to be archivists, museum curators, archaeologists or research analysts.

Our aim is to stimulate all children’s interest and provide a deep understanding about the lives of people who lived in the past.

By utilising our local area, which is rich in history, and with visits to other historical sites, we ensure that children experience history first hand. We teach children a sense of chronology, in order to develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. This enables our children to learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain.

We aim to make all children aware of the actions of important people in history and enable children to know about significant events in British history, whilst appreciating how things have changed over time.

Learning history will also ensure our children understand how Britain developed as a society, contributing to their understanding of their country of residence. Furthermore, our children will learn about aspects of local, British and ancient history to gain an understanding of historical development in the wider world.

Our teaching will enable pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.

Children will 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 our time.

We IMPLEMENT this through:

The overarching aim for history in the National Curriculum is to provide a high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

Our Learning Quest approach centres on an inquiry approach and it is often the driving force for learning in other curricular areas. 

Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum.

The National Curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
• understand 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
• understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum supports children’s understanding of history through the planning and teaching of ‘Understanding the World’. 

The aims are that all children will be able to:

• make sense of their physical world and their community.
• Increase their knowledge and sense of the world around them through visits to the local parks, libraries and museums
• listen to stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems
• foster an understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world.

The IMPACT of this is:

As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic historians who enjoy talking about and history and have a thirst to know more. 

They have a thorough knowledge of the historical themes taught and will be able to link this learning to other areas of the curriculum.

Through critical analysis, by the end of Key Stage 2, they will be able to use lessons from history to make an impact in their own lives.

Our inter-disciplinary approach to the curriculum leads to good progress over time across the key stages, relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills. This can be seen in a range of ways: including through pupil voice, school and home learning and through teacher assessment.

Governors, through the Governor Visit Plan and Subject Leader Reports, evaluate the work of subject leaders in ensuring that the quality of teaching and learning across the school is at least good. They ensure that pupils are ready for transition to secondary school and are equipped with the skills to flourish and succeed as caring individuals.