"If you don't know your history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree".  Michael Crichton asserts

Intent of our History Provision

At Whitehouse Community Primary School, we aim to inclusively provide stimulating, exciting and creative historical learning experiences that are embedded within our enquiry curriculum. We believe that high-quality history lessons should inspire children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians. Through our cross-curricular themes, we aim to develop children’s appreciation and understanding of the past. Our historians will have an insight about how people around the world used to live and how interpretations from varying sources may differ. Children will be taught to make links between areas of learning, with the aim of developing engaged, motivated and curious learners that reflect on the past and make meaningful links to the present day. Through our spiral approach, we enable children to learn and apply a wide range of historical skills and vocabulary across a range of subjects both in and out of the classroom and develop and deepen their skills year on year. This approach supports all our children with accessing the information they need for a wide variety of lessons and reduces their cognitive load. Our history provision also allows our children to develop their spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding and to develop their ability to embrace challenging activities, learning to think, reflect, debate and discuss. Through learning about the experiences, mistakes and successes of past events, civilisations and individuals and making links to our whole school RRSA values and the Whitehouse Way, our children learn how to become reflective and responsible global citizens.

Implementation of our History Provision

Our History curriculum is taught using carefully chosen half termly enquiry themes and focusses on the progression of knowledge and skills year on year. In every year group, a range of carefully written targets guide teachers to plan and assess children’s History learning. These targets may be taught through discrete History lessons or within other curriculum subjects such as writing projects in English or History themed guided reading texts. All History lessons are scaffolded using our three-step learning objectives and gold challenges.

History coverage is planned in a way to move our children’s historical understanding from a local and national level, branching out into European and global events, people and civilisations.  In Key Stage 1, children develop an awareness of the past, using vocabulary relating to the passing of time. They will begin to identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different time periods and place them within a chronological framework. They should understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past. In Key Stage 2, children continue to develop a chronologically secure understanding history. They will note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical vocabulary. They should understand how history is constructed from a range of sources.

Learning walls are used in every classroom to display their enquiry theme including key vocabulary and visual prompts to support and engage children with their learning.  Teachers are encouraged to plan as many educational visits, guest speakers, hands-on learning opportunities and parental engagement sessions as possible to support and enrich the learning of history within their year group.

Impact of our History Provision

An increased historical awareness not only helps our children understand the past but also understand each other, creating our school’s positive and inclusive environment.

• Children have highly developed transferable knowledge, skills, vocabulary and understanding and are able to make connections between what they’re learning and the wider school community and world.
• Our children’ understanding of the significant events and people of the past will help them reflect on and learn from others’ mistakes in order to become confident and responsible global citizens who strive for change and progress.
• The knowledge and skills learnt will prepare our children for the challenges of secondary school and give them the confidence and ambition to pursue further education or a career in history.
• High quality work is evidenced within learning journals and other topic based work. Sequences of lessons show progress of skills, knowledge and vocabulary.
• The outcomes of children’s work are displayed around the school. These cross-curricular displays stimulate curiosity and celebrate how our themes allow children to produce high-quality work.
• The spiral approach allows children to constantly consolidate and revisit historical knowledge, skills and vocabulary which boosts their confidence and creates a positive and engaging learning experience.
• Cross-curricular links in lessons build confidence, motivate children and supports them in making connections and remembering and applying the skills they have been taught.
• Teacher assessment, peer assessment and children’ self-assessment are used to track progress and attainment. Assessments are recorded and monitored on classroom monitor and analysed through pupil-progress meetings termly.