history at Simonstone st.peters
subject leadership
Subject Leaders: J Freeman and J Booth
Link Governor: J Haworth
intent
We are Historians!
History is all around us and at Simonstone St Peter’s we are fortunate enough to have lots of local history to study. Through an engaging and ‘hands-on’ curriculum, our aim is to instil a love of history, which ignites children’s curiosity about the past within our local area, Britain and the wider world. Through finding out about how and why the world, our country, culture and local community have developed over time, children understand how the past influences the present. History enables our children to develop their research and investigation skills through opportunities to explore a chronological framework of historical events and people. Through our well-designed curriculum, our children will learn to question evidence, distinguish between interpretation, opinion and fact and use this knowledge to form their own ideas, beliefs and values.
Through each unit of learning, children will know about, understand and 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. In our history curriculum, we have thought about key threads that run through the units of learning. These include invasion and settlement, legacy, empire, civilisation, monarchy and society. By carefully mapping these themes across the units and revisiting them in different sequences of learning, we will help children gain historical perspective.
We deliver a curriculum that:
- Celebrates the rich history of Britain and the wider world
- Inspires creative learning through excellent teaching practices that build on prior history learning and allow for repetition and progression of skills that build upon high starting points.
- Encourages our children to be inquisitive about other worlds developing inquiry based history skills that allow them to be culturally aware of the world around them.
- Promotes equality and understanding of the British values and ensures they are prepared for life in modern Britain.
- Allows every learner to be become a historian!
implementation
At Simonstone St Peter’s planning for history is a process in which all teachers are involved to ensure that the school gives full coverage of the National Curriculum requirements.
History teaching in our school is led by key concepts, and is defined by excellence, enjoyment and achievement for all. We use the National Curriculum objectives to inform our bespoke history curriculum, alongside the Lancashire Key Learning Indicators of Performance (KLIPS) as extra guidance.
History is taught using the school’s long-term plans, which are, (after collaboration with teachers) created, maintained and modified by the subject leader/s, and follow a two-year cycle. The long-term plans are progressive, with the knowledge and skills carefully mapped out so that pupils can build on prior learning, and are well equipped for their future learning.
In KS1, the historical skills will focus on the world around them and their living memory of history before moving to events that go beyond living history. This will ensure a firm foundation for KS2 History.
In KS2, the history curriculum is set out in chronological order to allow children to reference the previous events in time and to refer to this prior learning year-on-year and within the year.
The progression of skills is set out in order to build and develop the following:
- Chronological Understanding
- Knowledge and understanding of events, people and changes in the past
- Connection and historical Links
- Interpretations of history
- Historical Enquiry
- Lessons will develop long-term memory by allowing for repetition of learning within the year and year on year
History is taught through a variety of teaching approaches and resources such as our local history. Our carefully planned lesson design outlines what a history lesson at Simonstone St Peter's looks like. Take a look!
impact
A Simonstone 'Historian' can investigate and interpret the past to influence the future.
The below approaches to assessments support teachers in determining the progress and attainment of Simonstone ‘Historians’:
- Knowledge maps used at the beginning and end of a unit to assess the learning
- Children are involved in the process of self-improvement, recognising their achievements and acknowledging where they could improve. Activities during, and at the end of, each topic record achievement and celebrate success.
- We mark each piece of work positively, making it clear verbally, or on paper, where the work is good, and how it could be further improved. Children’s work is compared with model answers to determine its level.
- Work is moderated together to ensure that our levelling is consistent. Assessment records are reviewed annually.
- We have termly tracking, running alongside the English and Maths tracking.
- The school history coordinator/s monitors progress through the school by sampling children’s work at regular intervals and conducting book scrutinies. Children who are not succeeding and children who demonstrate high ability in history are identified and supported through adaptive teaching.
- The school uses KLIPS (Key Learning Indicators of Performance) to assess end of unit progress. This will be discussed and reviewed with the staff at staff meetings and at transition periods. Equally important is the continuous assessment of children’s work, much of which is informal. This assessment is used to inform teaching throughout the school.
- Reports to parents are made verbally twice a year at parent’s evenings and written once a year, describing each child’s attitude and progress in history.
History in action
