History
At Brington and Harlestone Primary schools, we are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities to engage in History. History is about real people who lived and real events which happened in the past. History is concerned with sequences, time and chronology and is the study of evidence from the past. History fires the children’s curiosity about the past in Britain and the wider world and plays an essential part in preparing us for living and working in the contemporary world. Pupils consider how the past influences the present, what past societies were like, and what beliefs and cultures influenced people’s actions. As they do this, children develop a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people.
Aims
- To give pupils an awareness of the past and how the past can help fashion the present.
- To help children establish a sense of identity, community and family.
- To help children understand cultural roots and shared inheritance.
- To help a sense of chronology.
- To develop the ability to interpret and understand the past.
- To help children empathise and explore the feelings of others.
- To enrich and help the teaching of other areas of the curriculum.
- To build children’s independent enquiry skills using a range of resources.
- To build children’s resilience and wellbeing skills through a range of historical activities, whilst comparing the past to the present.
Curriculum
The children undertake a broad and balanced programme that takes account of abilities, aptitudes and physical and emotional development. Through history, the children learn a range of skills, concepts, attitudes and methods of working.
Early Years
Within the Early Years Foundation Stage, History is included as part of Understanding of the World. History is taught in Reception as an integral part of the topic work through child-initiated and adult-led activities. The children are given the opportunity to find out about past and present events in their own lives, and those of their families and other people they know. In the foundation stage, history makes a significant contribution to developing a child’s understanding of the world through activities such as looking at pictures of famous people in history or discovering the meaning of new and old in relation to their own lives.
Key Stage 1
During Key Stage 1, pupils learn about people’s lives and lifestyles. They find out about significant men, women, children and events from the recent and more distant past in Britain and the wider world. They listen and respond to stories and use sources of information to help them ask and answer questions. They learn how the past is different from the present.
Key Stage 2
During Key Stage 2, pupils learn about significant people, events and places from both recent and more distant past. They learn about change and continuity in their own area, in Britain and in other parts of the world. They look at history in a variety of ways, for example from political, economic, technological and scientific, social, religious and cultural perspectives. They use different sources of information to help them investigate the past both in depth and in overview, using dates and historical vocabulary to describe events, people and developments. They also learn that the past can be represented and interpreted in different ways.