The purpose of 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.

Aims

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

•  know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
•  gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
•  understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
•  understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Meet Harry History

Harry is part of our Curriculum Crew who is introduced at the start of each topic and lesson, providing a visual link to lessons and allows our children to focus on the skills needed in the upcoming tasks.

Harry is featured as part of our History Pathway Journey - allowing the children to revisit and consolidate prior learning .

2024-2025

Reception

We have read the story Avocado baby and then discussed growth and how we change as we get older. We brought photographs in from home and played a game of ‘Guess Who’. It was lots of fun comparing us as babies and now. 

We learnt about what a family tree is and how it is a way of displaying the relationship between people in a family. It helps to tell our family story and share the information about our past. 

Year 1

Lost Museum Artefacts!

We received a letter from the Discovery Museum to tell us that all of their historical toys had been mixed up! We explored the artefacts to learn about toys throughout history and created labels to explain when they toys were from and what materials they were made from. We discussed what modern versions of the toys would be.

Year 2

We have been learning about the history of the seaside.  We learned about how Victorians enjoyed their time at the seaside, what they wore and how the relaxed.  We thought about how we still share some similarities with the Victorians but thought about how things have changed over time. We looked at the tradition of Punch and Judy at traditional seaside resorts and created our own puppets.

We have also researched our local seaside and the history and importance of Souter lighthouse. 

Year 3

Year 4

                   The Romans.

Do you have what it takes to join the Roman army? We explored how and why the Roman army were so success from training to tactic to the leather sandals that enabled them to march through Europe. We designed recruitment adverts and identified the key equipment needed to be the perfect Roman legionary.

Year 5

Changing Role of Women in History.

Year 5 this term are studying the changing role of women throughout history. We have, so far, looked at a chronological timeline of how women's roles and status has evolved and changed throughout history.

Our first challenge was to use primary and secondary sources to conduct research about significant women in the 18th and 19th Century . We conducted research before presenting our research in an interesting way. Working as a team we were each given role and shared our findings through mini presentations.

2023-2024

Nursery

Reception 

We have been looking at the celebration of Chinese New Year. As part of this we have been looking at past celebrations that we have been a part of. We thought back to times where we celebrated a birthday, Christmas or Halloween and how that was special to us.

We have been learning about the past and talking about when we were babies. Our parents sent in photographs of when we we were born and we played Guess Who? 

It’s was lots of fun guessing and spotting ourselves as a baby. We had to look for clues  as to whether the photograph looked like a boy or girl, hair colour, eye colour and blanket colour. 

Year 1

We read the story Lost in the Toy Museum and found a letter from the museum telling us that their toys had gone missing! The children were excited to find the artefacts in the classroom and studied them closely. We talked about how they were different to toys today. We then chose an object to label.

Year 2

Famous People & Events:

In Autumn Term we are exploring famous people and events in history.  We will be looking at the life and work of famous men and women including Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale.  In the second half term we will focus on the events of the Great Fire of London; making timelines, exploring historical evidence and artefacts and creating our own Great Fire of Sea View. 

We learnt about the life and work of the great fossil hunter - Mary Anning. We created moulds and used plaster of paris to create our own fossils.

Year 3

Year 4

We had a great day to introduce our topic by meeting a Roman soldier! We found out about how the Roman Empire began and explored a range of Roman artefacts. We explored a range of items that we use today and discovered that the Romans were the first to introduce them!

We had great fun finding out about the everyday lives of the Romans, including the lives of soldiers. We even had our own battles!

Year 5

Changing Role of Women in History.

Year 5 this term are studying the changing role of women throughout history. We have, so far, looked at a chronological timeline of how women's roles and status has evolved and changed throughout history.

We investigated what life was like for women in the 17th and 18th Century . After reading the rules women had to follow in polite society we used some of the rules to create A Etiquette Guide for Ladies.

Year 6

Crime and Punishment

As part of our History topic, we are beginning to investigate how Crime and Punishment has changed from Roman Britain right to the 21st Century. Take a look at our fantastic posters that show the new laws and changes that occurred during the Medieval period.