HISTORY

Intent: ‘Know more, Do more.’

• Academic excellence: Pupils to leave with a GCSE History qualification to increase their learning opportunities post-16 and fulfill career aspirations.  
• To study a diverse history that is relevant to its learners. 
• To produce global citizens by helping them understand the world around them and their place in it. 
• To create articulate and independent learners who make logical deductions with the evidence before them and can identify and explain the reasons for differing interpretations.   
• To ignite a curiosity that will create lifelong learners. 

Implementation:

We use an enquiry-based History curriculum, which encourages curiosity in our learners. Overarching enquiry questions gives meaning to our children’s learning.  Our breadth and depth studies cover the following:

• Chronology
• Change and continuity over time
• Significance of people and events
• Historical enquiry and
• Interpretations

Teachers have a clear idea of the knowledge that will be acquired and remembered by the children at the end of the unit. They use unit Knowledge Organisers to share this with pupils.  

We understand how key knowledge of specific vocabulary, is to historical understanding. Staff are given key vocabulary for each unit as well as it being included in the Knowledge Organiser.

We use Bloom’s Taxonomy questioning in our classroom. This covers six strands – recall, explanation, application, analysis, justification, and evaluation.

Assessment for History is based on the key enquiry questions for each topic. Pupils’ knowledge is assessed regularly using formal and low stakes testing; revision lessons, direct improvement and reflection time as well as regular memory retrieval activities. Teachers use their assessment to plan interventions and inform future planning and differentiation.  Students track and reflect upon their progress using their course content sheets.

Impact:

Pupils can talk about their History learning with confidence and pride. They remember their history learning from previous years and can use this to support their current learning. Children develop a secure knowledge of chronology, in both British and world history. They are able to express this using age-appropriate historical vocabulary.

Pupil voice shows that children have experienced a wide range of teaching techniques and topics. Pupils can talk about how these experiences supported their learning.

Pupils finish KS3 with a solid foundation of the knowledge and skills required for GCSE. They are well supported with all pupils having access to online textbooks and digital learning resources like Kerboodle and Seneca learning.

The History KS3-4 curriculum plans can be retrieved on our school website, where we have set out the order and length of each topic.