History

Intent (What is our History curriculum?) 

Our aim is that pupils consider how the past influences the present, what past societies were like, how these societies organised their politics, and what beliefs and cultures influenced people’s actions. As they do this, children develop a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. They see the diversity of human experience, and understand more about themselves as individuals and members of society. What they learn can influence their decisions about personal choices, attitudes and values in the future; as one of our Year 4 pupils put it, “History teaches us to be a good adult. We will know what to do and what not to do.”  In our  History curriculum, children find evidence, weigh it up and reach their own conclusions. To do this they need to be able to research, sift through evidence, and argue for their point of view – skills that are valued in adult life.

 During Key Stage 2 pupils learn about significant people, events and places from both recent and more distant past. They learn about change and continuity in their own area, in Britain and in other parts of the world. They look at history in a variety of ways, for example from political, economic, technological and scientific, social, religious, and cultural perspectives. They use different sources of information to help them investigate the past both in depth and in overview, using dates and historical vocabulary to describe events, people and developments. They also learn that the past can be represented and interpreted in different ways.   

At HCJS, History is more often than not, taught alongside Geography as a topic unit .Some of these units are more focused on History and some on Geography. Each topic covers some content from both subjects however.

Each year group covers a variety of such topics, as detailed in the table below. This ensures that the children are exposed to a wide range of learning opportunities, which enables them to utilise their historical knowledge and understanding to draw conclusions and make meaningful connections.  

 History and Geography topics at HCJS

Implementation (How do we deliver the curriculum?) 

At Haddenham Community Junior School, we believe that children learn best via a holistic creative curriculum when they are taught through a range of activities and experiences. Our children have told us that they love to “be detectives” and to take ownership of their learning. We, as a school, base our planning on the needs of our children and provide a broad curriculum that encompasses the teaching of essential elements of Historical skills and understanding, whilst allowing the children to work creatively.  The coverage provided by our approach to learning meets the requirements of the National Curriculum, in the form of engaging and comprehensively planned lessons. We plan using many different sources and ensure that this is adapted to create bespoke lessons that are relevant and meet the needs of our learners.  Our children enjoy topic lessons that are well-resourced and purposeful. They make connections between historical concepts which can then be assessed through rigorous formative assessment, including verbal feedback and written examples, quizzes and presentations as well as opportunities to write at more length when appropriate. 

The progression of skills and knowledge in history over KS2 are measured against descriptors in the Quigley Essentials curriculum (taken from the National Curriculum). These milestones, or ‘small steps’, measure a child’s progress against a scale that will lead, by Year 6, to the threshold statement that aligns with the expectations of the National Curriculum.

Impact (How do we measure attainment?) 

The achievement of Expected level for each year group is evidenced through first-hand observation of how students perform at lesson objective level, drawing on evidence from pupil voice interview, book scrutiny, observations, assessments and curriculum reviews. Together, this bank of information allows teachers to assess the children robustly and informatively at 4 key assessment points that we call threshold concepts .