History

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.

Please use the links below for information about our curriculum for History.

Intent

Decoy’s History curriculum is designed to give children a greater understanding of their place in history and its chronology. We aspire for our children to become confident historians who readily employ historical enquiry to investigate the past.

Through learning about British and World History our children will understand the impact of societies, influential people and events impact on our lives today, thus helping them to make sense of the world that they live in.

Implementation

Throughout their time at Decoy, our children are taught about a range of different time periods in the form of large scale case studies as well as those that focus on specific individuals and their impact on society. We teach each topic with reference to the children’s previous exposure to other periods of history in order that they are able to demonstrate a secure chronological understanding.

Our children learn to become active historians having opportunities to handle and investigate artefacts as well as visit sites of local significance. Our aim is that these experiences develop the children’s ability to present historical knowledge with a critical understanding of the different perspectives and bias that are at play when recording and making history.