History

‘We are not makers of History, we are made by History.’ (Martin Luther King Jnr)

‘The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.’ (Theodore Roosevelt)

Intent

The Intent of History at All Saints is to stimulate the children’s interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past.

We teach children a sense of chronology, and through this they develop a sense of identity, and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. In this way, they learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain and, by considering how people lived in the past, they are better able to make their own life choices today.

We teach children to understand how events and people in the past have influenced our lives, communities, Britain and the wider world in order to best prepare them for life in modern Britain.

We want our children to develop their historical enquiry skills through curiosity and investigation. We teach them to investigate and analyse primary and secondary sources and encourage them to raise their own questions to help demonstrate understanding.

Implementation: The ‘Big Picture’

At All Saints, children’s history learning is a journey which starts in Nursery and continues through to Year 6. In all year groups, the development of historical language to talk about, and compare ‘past and present’ time periods is of great importance. One of the key historical skills is Chronological Understanding or ‘Big Picture’ history.

The aim of ‘Big Picture History’ is for pupils to learn where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework or timeline and identify similarities and differences between ways of life at different times and in different places.

This starts in Nursery and Reception, where pupils learn and use vocabulary related to time, talk about their own experiences of ‘past’ and ‘present’ and begin to make comparisons through storytelling, role play and handling artefacts.

At Key Stage One children begin to use a variety of sources such as texts, photographs, and pictures

As they progress to Key Stage Two, our young historians are beginning to use timelines with greater confidence, identify key dates and discuss and compare events, beliefs and behaviours from the historical periods they have studied. They will examine different versions of the same event using Primary and Secondary sources and consider ways of checking how accurate and reliable they may be.

For all ages, ‘History comes alive’ and learning is enhanced, through carefully planned trips not only to museums, but also to places that have significance locally.

Impact

At All Saints School, pupils get better at history by applying their increasing knowledge and showing deeper capacity to master the main elements of the discipline of history through an awareness that we learn about the past from different sources.

These elements are:

Chronological understanding
Knowledge and interpretation of events
People and changes in the past
Historical enquiry

Pupil Voice

"History is about something that happened in the past - even yesterday." (Year 3)

"History trips help us to learn more about a topic. If we can't see it, it's hard to imagine it." (Year 3)

"I enjoyed learning about the Anglo-Saxons. They arrived in 625 AD after the Romans. The country was split into smaller settlements that could be organised more easily. I found out that a lot of our place names come from Saxon times." (Year 4)

"I have enjoyed finding out about women working for themselves during the Second World War. That was quite new. The men were fighting. Some women had to work in the factories and it was very dangerous." (Year 5)

You will find the History Knowledge Progression Document here. This is a working document.

History Progression of Knowledge

You will find the History Skills Progression Document here.History Progression of Skills