History
Our vision is to provide an excellent, well-rounded education which celebrates academic, emotional and spiritual achievement and prepares everyone to fulfil their full potential in an inclusive environment in God’s World.
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey.
As stated in the National Curriculum Purpose of Study for History, “A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip 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.”
At St George’s, our History curriculum is underpinned by the above statement and we believe that history is an essential part of children’s development throughout the school, from our youngest children in Nursery, through to the young adults we hand over to the next phase of their lifelong journey. The following aims are embedded within our teaching and are central to the engaging lessons and opportunities which our children encounter.
We aim for all pupils to:
• 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. Our intent is for all children to believe in themselves and grow as historians. Our teaching is planned to stimulate the children’s interest, curiosity and understanding about the past and how people and events have influenced our lives today.
Through our history curriculum, the children will revisit threshold concepts to allow them to reflect and build on prior learning and develop long term memory. The threshold concepts are:
• investigating and interpreting the past,
• building an overview of world history,
• understanding chronology,
• communicating historically.
We have also identified knowledge categories to be revisited on various occasions as appropriate to the history being taught. These include; artefacts and evidence, main events, settlement, beliefs, location, society, culture and pastimes, conflict, food and farming, travel and exploration and vocabulary linked to the specific areas being studied as well as vocabulary needed to develop their skills as historians.
We see Cultural Capital as the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement. Throughout our history curriculum, the children are provided with rich and sustained opportunities to develop their cultural capital that celebrates all cultures and values diversity, to prepare them for their future and also for life in modern Britain.
Throughout our history teaching, we promote an ‘I can do’ philosophy in which we aim to develop ‘growth mindset’ attitudes.
At St George’s all children have full access to the curriculum, which includes our SEND children. Within history, they will have opportunities to develop their historical skills, using a range of strategies to support their needs to ensure they are able to meet their full potential. This could include having their work presented differently with the outcomes being the same as their peers; through scaffolding and modelling of historical skills, where complex ideas can be broken down to make them accessible. Children with SEND will have access to visual representations of their work, topical word banks and manipulatives to support their learning.
We strive to help children apply their skills and knowledge in a range of different contexts in the wider world and we want all of our children to develop confidence as historians, experience success and recognise the enjoyment which history can bring.
