History
The intention of our history curriculum is to deepen the children’s understanding of the world in which we live and to appreciate how the world has changed dramatically over time and continues to do so today. We want all children to begin to understand the impact of both British and World History upon our lives today by learning about significant events, people and changes from the past within bespoke units of work based on the National Curriculum.
We want children to develop a love of the knowledge that forms the history of our world and want to find out even more in this wonderful subject in their future. Children are encouraged to 'believe they can and they will be' a historian in our hall of fame!
Please see our history curriculum intent document below which outlines how we teach history at St. John's CE Primary School.
Historical Concepts
Concepts allow children to make connections between their learning and in turn gain a deeper understanding allowing them to make sense of the facts and the world around them. Five key concepts flow through each child's learning in history over their years at St. John's.
- Chronology - Chronology is the study of the big picture of events across time – also referred to in the National Curriculum as ‘a chronological framework’ and ‘the long arc of development’. This means that children gradually build up a sense of how periods and events fit together in sequence. In this concept, it is also necessary to develop understanding of historical language and terminology, the idea of sequence, duration and the sense of period.
- Historical enquiry - Historical enquiry is the process by which students use the same methods as a professional historian when investigating an aspect of history. Children will develop their understanding of historical enquiry by asking and framing question; undertaking research; making judgments and effectively communicating answers.
- Continuity and change - There were lots of things going on at any one time in the past. Some changed rapidly while others remained relatively continuous. We can look at these at face value and consider things that were continuous and explain why, and things that were changing and explain why. Another key aspect of this concept is to challenge these ideas and look for change where common sense suggests that there has been none and looking for continuities where we assumed that there was change. We can then use these to judge comparisons between two points in the past, or between some point in the past and the present. We can then evaluate change over time using the ideas of progress and decline.
- Interpreting ideas and sources - This concept helps children to develop the understanding that history is not just about knowing the events of the past but also the way such events are presented. These presentations of the past come in a variety of forms and children should be able to reflect purposefully on their worth.
- Significant events, ideas or people who have had such a long-lasting impact on the world that they could be significant. Not all things are significant for the same reasons as other things and in this concept, children can see the range of reasons why certain people, places and events were significant then and now. It includes assessing and evaluating the impact that they had on a period of time.
In addition to these five overarching concepts which flow through our hisotry curiculum, there are a number of thematic concepts which are revisited at various points during a child's time in school. These are presented as ladders which have an 'elaboration' behind the scenes which helps to explain where knowledge fits in the bigger picture. Specific thematic concepts mapped through school currently are:
Monarchy
Civilisation
Empire
Power
Invention
Settlement
An example for the thematic concept of monarchy is included in the files for download on this page.
Files to Download
