History 

At Shanklea we aim to provide a high-quality history education which will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of significant events and individuals, in global, British and local history and recognise how things have changed over time. It will inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching will equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. We aim for history to help 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. At Shanklea we use Kapow’s history scheme as a framework and then the team has adapted to meet the individual needs and context of our school, where necessary.

Through enquiry based Learning we aim to ensure that all pupils:

• Know and understand the history of Britain, how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.

• Develop an understanding of the history of the wider world, including ancient civilisations, empires, non-European societies and the achievements of mankind.

• Develop a historically-grounded understanding of substantive concepts - power, invasion, settlement and migration, civilisation, beliefs, trade, achievements of mankind and society.

• Form historical arguments based on cause and effect, consequence, continuity and change, similarity and differences.

• Have an appreciation for significant individuals, inventions and events that impact our world both in history and from the present day.

• Understand how historians learn about the past and construct accounts.

• Ask historically-valid questions through an enquiry-based approach to learning to create structured accounts.

• Explain how and why interpretations of the past have been constructed using evidence: 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.

• Make connections between historical concepts and timescales 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.

Subject Content

Key Stage 1

Pupils will be taught about:

• Changes within living memory – where appropriate, these will be used to reveal aspects of change in national life

• Events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally [for example, the Battle of Hastings

• The lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements, some will be used to compare aspects of life in different periods e.g. Christopher Columbus, Amelia Earhart

• Significant historical events, people and places in their own locality e.g. how school changes

Key Stage 2

• Changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age

• The Lives of significant individuals – Lord Shaftesbury

• The Roman Empire and its impact on Britain

• Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons 

• The Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor

• A local history study

• A study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066 – The Tudors

• The achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of e.g: Ancient Egypt

• Ancient Greece – a study of Greek life and achievements and their influence on the western world

• A non-European society that provides contrasts with British history –Mayan civilization.

How history is taught at Shanklea:

We have identified the different types of knowledge needed to support children becoming historians. The two are:

• substantive knowledge 

• disciplinary knowledge

Substantive knowledge:

The historical facts and key concepts we teach that form the narrative of the curriculum which are repeated and built upon, providing progression throughout the curriculum. This knowledge is broken into threads which weave their way throughout our entire history curriculum. These threads are: power, beliefs, achievements, invasion, settlement and migration, civilisation and trade.

Disciplinary knowledge:

Is how we make use of the substantive knowledge to become an historian developing our understanding of the following concepts:

• chronology - understanding when events took place and how they link to one another

• significance and legacy - understanding how events or people have impacted life today

• cause and consequence - understanding changes which took place in different periods of history and knowing why they happened

We use substantive and disciplinary knowledge to enable us to plan and deliver clear sequences of lessons which ensure progression and make links to previously taught units.  We create bespoke knowledge mats for our pupils for each topic area of history, to support them remembering key information which we wish to become “sticky knowledge” and to enable children to build their understanding of history. This sticky knowledge is revisited in every lesson, including knowledge from previously taught units of work and children can access their knowledge mats throughout each session. Key vocabulary is also identified and referred to regularly, encouraging children to correctly use historical language and supporting them to develop their use of vocabulary.

At Shanklea, we recognise the importance of understanding the concept of chronology in order to become an historian. We use timelines in each of our history units, to help pupils to understand how time passes and to develop an awareness of where they are positioned in history themselves;  building on them throughout the years so that pupils can make links between topic areas taught in their current year group and those taught in previous classes. These timelines are displayed in all classes and referred to throughout each unit of work.

At the end of each unit of work, pupils are assessed on both their substantive knowledge and their disciplinary knowledge. This is through a range of question types, drawing out facts they’ve learnt and allowing pupils the opportunity to share their opinion supported by evidence.

Please find examples of our planning below and a long term plan.