History
History at Brereton
Aim: To develop children’s historical knowledge and skills by immersing them in topics, in order to ignite a passion for finding out more about the past and how it influences their lives today.
- Each new topic will begin by prompting questions and discussion about that period of time, e.g. by showing artefacts, looking at photographs, visiting a monument etc. Children will create a mind map demonstrating ‘I think, I wonder, I’d like to…’ (see example below) In Key Stage 1 this can be done as a whole class. This will be stuck in their topic book. At the end of a topic, children should then complete a topic quiz, giving them opportunity to reflect upon what they have learnt and show progression.
- There will be a clear starting point to a topic that links to children’s prior knowledge and is relevant to the children in your class. Topics have been chosen so that they link with previous learning in lower year groups so look at these to see how you can build on what the have already done. Where appropriate, each unit will look at what it was like for a child in that period of history so that the learning is relevant to pupils. As a church school, it is also important to look at religion in that time period, making comparisons to Christianity or looking at what effect events have had on religion or social policy today.
- History isn't just be about learning knowledge about the past but learning from it too. Particularly in Key Stage 2, children should be encouraged to ask ‘why?’ and examine what has happened as a result. Homework challenges can be used to follow children’s own interests in a topic if they are not being covered in class.
- From Key Stage 2 children will be able to place the period studied on a timeline (UKS2 should be able to sequence events within a time studied). This will be evident in topic books and on display in the classroom.
- Throughout school, children will use a range of sources to learn about the past, e.g. artefacts, photographs, books and the internet, and evaluate the reliability/usefulness of these sources.
- Children will communicate their knowledge in a range of ways, e.g. through discussion, pictures, drama, models, writing and ICT.
- Once a term, complete a guided reading task will link to current history topic, giving children an opportunity to recap and embed knowledge. This could include sources, such as speeches.
- Knowledge organisers with key vocabulary are shared at the start of a topic.
The Victorians
The Industrial Revolution
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