History

Intent:

History is about putting pieces of the past together to understand who we are today and how the world works. At Naphill and Walters Ash School, through the study of History, we aim to foster a curiosity about the world and how things have come to be as they are today. We encourage children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people.

Our history curriculum promotes curiosity and a love for learning about the past.  Through an enquiry-based approach, children are encouraged to ask and explore historically valid questions and report their findings by drawing on skills from across the curriculum. Alongside the development of substantive knowledge, children will develop their disciplinary skills as they learn the fundamental elements of what it is to be a historian.  We explore the fundamental themes of power and immigration through history. Pupils will learn that our knowledge of history is constructed from evidence obtained from a range of sources and that these sources can be subject to different interpretations.

Children will leave Naphill and Walters Ash School, being knowledgeable about key people, events and time periods from the past and will weave these together to form informed, overarching historical narratives. This enables our children to learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain.

Implementation:

Each epoch is underpinned by rich, substantive knowledge and ambitious vocabulary, whilst also ensuring children are developing their disciplinary skills through museum visits, handling artefacts and engaging in carefully planned fieldwork. We teach our children to understand how events in the past have influenced and shaped our lives today; we also teach them to investigate these past events and by doing so, develop skills in the following areas of history:

• Constructing the Past: our pupils can understand how history fits together.
• Sequencing the Past: our pupils can understand the chronology of history and understand key times and places.
• Continuity and Change: our pupils can identify how somethings have changed, and some have stayed the same, recognising if events were isolated or a trend over time.
• Cause and Effect: our pupils comprehend that some events in history can be the catalyst for other events, which may produce negative or positive impacts.
• Significance and Interpretation: our pupils can identify what is important and why, whilst also understanding that our comprehension of the past stems from different places and sources.
• Historical Enquiries: our pupils can plan and carry out their own independent investigations yielding a better understanding of the past.
• Using Sources as Evidence: our pupils understand that history is made up of a variety of different sources and to make judgements using primary and secondary sources.
• Vocabulary: our pupils become more articulate historians.

Impact:

On leaving Naphill and Walters Ash School pupils will:

• Have a clear awareness of a coherent chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day.
• Have a comprehensive understanding of how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by global events.
• Be able to understand and utilise an extensive range of historical vocabulary and knowledge-based skills.
• Develop the ability to apply inquiry skills alongside effective analytical and presentational techniques.
• Be proficient in using methods of historical enquiry with a growing ability to conduct reasoned arguments with which to explain findings.
• Be able to express a passion for and commitment to the subject, with an innate sense of curiosity to explore the world and its people, from antiquity to our modern civilisations.
• Be able to construct considered opinions, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

Our aim is to develop citizens of tomorrow, who will leave primary education possessing an innate sense of empathy and accountability towards our world and its citizens.