Intent

At Northbourne CE Primary school we aim to create true historians! We want our children to love history and thrive in a history rich environment. It is our aim to create future historians of the world. We hope that the history taught at Northbourne will stimulate all our children’s interest and understanding about the way the world was in the past and how the world around us has been influenced by the events of the past. We teach children the importance of chronology to help develop a sense of identity and cultural understanding based on the historical heritage of Britain and the world. This enables our children to learn to value their own and other peoples cultures and beliefs in line with our school and Christian values. History taught at Northbourne will also ensure that our children have a rich understanding of how Britain developed as a society, contributing to their understanding of where and when they live in the world.

Through our history learning and our wider school learning, we look to develop our children into confident and independent enquirers, investigators and analysers which will enable to them to understand the importance of their history learning whilst also becoming enthused and immersed in their History.

Implementation

At Northbourne History is taught in blocks throughout the year so that children can achieve depth in their learning and have a clear understanding of the subject and the skills needed to thrive.

Together the teachers at Northbourne have planned a whole school outlook to History to ensure progression and coverage is consistent across the year groups. Individually, class teachers have identified the knowledge and skills for each blocked topic.

Through our Topic approach to learning, we ensure that the History learning ties into the other core and foundation subjects such as Geography, Art, DT and Music where possible which allows children to make connections with their learning as they gain more knowledge and skills throughout their school journey.

In EYFS and KS1, history begins by looking at the children’s own personal history and the children are introduced to idea of chronology and timelines, which is a key theme across all year groups.

In KS2, the children will each year group looks at an aspect of local history, a British history topic and ancient History topic. Again, the children will learn about the chronology of the area of history they are learning about with a focus on placing the time, event or person on a timeline to provide chronological context to their history learning. At the start of each History topic the children will have an opportunity to discuss and review their previous learning and what they already know about the topic they are currently working on. This will enable children to link and progress their history knowledge through the chronological ordering of their topics and give the children opportunities to compare and contrast historical periods and people.

At Northbourne the staff have access to a wide variety of schemes and planning styles such as Plan Bee with a focus on the key historical concepts of: vocabulary, Historical enquiry, interpretations of History, range and depth of Historical knowledge and chronological understanding.

The children are exposed to hands on History wherever possible at Northbourne and due to our unique school setting at Northbourne along with our fantastic Forest School programme the children are given the opportunity to create and explore their history learning through an outdoor environment on a weekly basis.

Impact

Northbourne’s history curriculum is designed to create a passion within our children when they hear the word History. We aim for all our pupils to make progress in history regardless of their starting point and look to create an enthusiastic school wide love for the learning of History in our school.