History
A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past.
Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Our curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:
- know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
- gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
- 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.
Click below for the full History Curriculum:
Knowledge Organisers
At Somerdale, we use knowledge organisers for geography and history. They are one-to-two-page sheets summarising the essential facts, key vocabulary, and subject-specific skills for each enquiry question. Children are given these at the start of each unit and they are referred to throughout the unit to support retention of information and ensure focus in lessons is largely devoted to the key skills needed to be a successful geographer or historian. Knowledge organisers are working documents.
Each lesson, pupils highlight the knowledge and skills which they have retained, allowing teaching staff and themselves as learners to see areas of strength and areas which need further study. Low stake quizzes (assessment) are used primarily to assess understanding.
