History
The History Curriculum at The Pines
At The Pines, we follow the National Curriculum, differentiated to the needs of our children. Our History curriculum aims to help all children to gain knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It aims to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about their past and the past of others. The curriculum aims to equip children to be able to ask questions, think critically, and develop perspective and judgement. Our curriculum helps children to understand their own lives and the lives and identity of others. We explore and understand the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups.
Intent:
Our curriculum ensures children understand that history is all around us; in our unique families and in the cultures and traditions and in our local and wider communities. Exploring history develops children’s curiosity about their past, Britain’s past and the wider world. Through finding out about how and why the world, our country, culture and local community have developed over time, children understand how the past influences the present. History enables children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. What they learn through history can influence their decisions about personal choices, attitudes and values. Teachers use history planning to make comparisons between historical periods previously taught, developing children’s chronological knowledge and understanding from the Stone Age to present day.
Implementation:
Our curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children to flourish and become the best they can possibly be. We teach the National Curriculum, differentiated to the needs of the children. Teachers are supported by clear skills and knowledge progression documents which ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year on year and sequenced appropriately. It is important that the children develop progressive skills and do not just learn a series of independent facts about the past. We provide a variety of curriculum enrichment experiences linked to the topics covered, for each year group. This enables our children to experience a rich variety of ‘hands-on’ learning in lessons. The curriculum aims to support children to develop historical skills which will help them in their adult life, such as conducting research, exploring evidence, reaching conclusions and put across their points of view.
The key aim of the Early Years curriculum is to provide high quality play with planning based on themes allowing pupils a holistic approach to learning. Planning for the specific area of understanding the world aims to guide the pupils to make sense of their physical world and community. Within the continuous provision (activities provided throughout the day indoors and out) children have the opportunity to increase their knowledge of people and communities by listening to a broad range of stories, non- fiction books and poems and rhymes as well as visiting local libraries, meeting important members of society such as police officers, paramedics and identifying similarities and differences within our families. Pupils will have the opportunity to foster an understanding of our diverse world by, engaging with play that is child led, play which is sensitively supported and extended by adults and play that is guided towards specific educational outcomes.
Impact:
Our aim is for our history curriculum to support children to develop independent thinking skills, who are excited and inspired by the past. We want our children to be able to use a wide range of historical sources to ask and answer questions about the past. Our curriculum enables children to develop a chronological understanding of British history from the Stone Age to the present day. They will have had opportunities to draw comparisons with the historical eras that they study. Children will have an understanding and perspective about our locality and the events that have shaped the area in which we live. We measure the impact of our History curriculum through monitoring work, listening to the children’s attitudes about history through pupil voice, by taking learning walks/ book looks and analysis of the history skills ladders.