Our Vision in History 

Intent

At Newsome Junior School, we offer a high quality and ambitious history curriculum that ignites in pupils a real curiosity and fascination about Britain’s past and the wider world. Our aim is to fulfil the requirements, aims and programmes of study of the National Curriculum for History, whilst also being fully inclusive of every child.  We  provide a broad and balanced programme of study that encompasses both our school values and British Values throughout.  Our history curriculum has been carefully ordered and sequenced, ensuring that key component knowledge is not only built upon but rigorously revisited through our ‘Smart’ pedagogical teaching and learning approach.  

It is our ambition that children learn about inspiring and challenging themes through our contextually relevant ‘Big Ideas’, which enable them to develop their personal choices, attitudes and values. Through finding out about how and why the world, our country, cultures and local communities have developed over time, children understand how the past influences the present, and this develops a context for their growing identity.

We believe that our teaching in history is important in broadening children’s horizons, challenging preconceived ideas and developing life skills that prepare them for high school and beyond.

Subject leader schemes of work identify the most essential knowledge for children with special educational needs.  This enables us to make sure that all children are exposed to and receive a high quality history curriculum.

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive and builds year on year. Our bespoke ‘Smart’ teaching and learning approach ensures that teachers challenge children to ‘Connect’ new learning to previous knowledge taught.  Our Smart ‘Flashbacks’ have been designed to ensure that learning from the previous lesson, term and other year groups is revisited and our Smart ‘Secure’ activities ensure that the impact of new learning is measured and that opportunities to consolidate are provided.

History is taught as part of a half-termly or termly topic, focusing on key component knowledge and incorporates composite and disciplinary skills, enabling children to learn how to become a historian. Our history lead teacher supports staff in the implementation of the History curriculum, ensuring that our key themes and ‘Big Ideas’ are woven throughout each year group and are seen in everyday practice. As well as this, the lead teacher ensures that the teaching of History is highly effective, providing support when developing subject knowledge and planning. Our History lessons provide a variety of opportunities for children to expand their vocabulary through careful planning, discussion, research and reading.

Newsome Junior School ensures that history has the same importance given to it as the core subjects, as we feel this is important in enabling all children to gain ‘real-life’ experiences and to work as historians. Children are given opportunities to carry out historical inquiries by using research to answer their own questions or pre-planned learning challenge questions. They are encouraged to use a range of historical tools in order collate information about a period in history or an historical event, and then are able to present their findings in a variety of ways. ‘Big Ideas’ such as ‘The Role of Women’, ‘Prejudice and Persecution’ and ‘War and Invasion’ are just some of the key themes that feature in our history topics, building on, or adding to, ‘Big Ideas’ studied in previous year groups. Historical skills are taught in tandem with ‘Big Ideas’, providing the children with the appropriate skillset and understanding to successfully interrogate topics ‘as a historian’.

Impact

The impact of our history curriculum is measured in various ways.

• The subject lead ensures that the National Curriculum requirements are being met.  
• Pupil outcomes are monitored through deep dives, where evidence is gathered in the following ways: Pupil voice interviews, book scrutinies, drop- ins, discussions with staff etc.
• Assessing children’s knowledge of key component learning as set out within schemes of work.
• Assessing quality of children’s explanation of ‘Big Ideas’ themes.
• Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice conversations).
• Moderation and scrutiny of pupil’s books and professional dialogue between teachers to asses the quality of children’s learning.
• Sharing good practice in staff meetings.
• Marking of written work in books against the school’s marking policy.
• Clear next steps are determined by a cycle of monitoring, evaluating and reviewing.

The impact of the subject is also monitored by how well children can:

• Recall knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from historical periods covered.
• Think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past.
• Think critically about history and communicate confidently their interpretations about what they have learnt.
• Consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and other’s views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources.
• Convey a passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
• Respect historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments.
• Embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.