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.” The National Curriculum
INTENT
At Catcott we aim to create historians who are curious about the past, who develop an understanding and appreciation of evidence about the past and whose lives are enriched by the shared experiences of our history – locally, nationally and internationally.
At Catcott Primary School we aim to deliver a history curriculum that is accessible to all and that will maximise the outcomes for every child so that they know more, remember more and understand more. Our teaching of history will help pupils gain a secure knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. The curriculum is structured in a way that allows for children to make links between current and previous learning. Teachers use the long term plans for history to make comparisons between historical periods previously taught, developing children’s chronological knowledge and understanding from the Stone Age to present day.
We want children to be curious to know more about the past and to have the skills required to explore their own interests. History lessons focus on working as historians and developing historical skills and there are many opportunities for the curriculum to be enriched through historical visits, visitors and events held in school.
We aim to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. It is important for children to develop a sense of identity through learning about the past and we want them to know how history has shaped their own lives.
Why we need thinking skills
Thinking skills is one of our key drivers at Catcott and we feel this is especially important in history. Historical narrative, explanation, role-play, TV programmes etc can give children the information, or they can find it out for themselves, but how do they understand it? How do they represent it in their heads? In what form do they store it? Is the knowledge accessible for use? Can it be retrieved and applied or manipulated?
History is complex, involving many-faceted elements. Children need help in visualising this often, using complex maps of interactions such as Venn diagrams, Concept maps, Tables, Charts, Networks, Webs and Flow diagrams.
All these approaches help children to:
- See relationships
- Make associations
- See and form categories
- Distinguish relevant information
- Analyse ideas
- Relate new information to existing information
- Show how different parts of the topic relate to one another