History

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At Castle Hill Primary School, we recognise the importance of History in every aspect of children’s daily life. History teaching should inspire children’s curiosity to know more about the past; allowing them to ask perceptive questions, think critically, understand evidence and develop their judgment and perspective. History enables children to have an awareness of the complexity of different people’s lives and the diversity of societies, as well as understanding their own identity and challenges.

History is taught across each year group and enables pupils to study in depth key historic understanding, skills and vocabulary. Each module aims to inspire curiosity and build upon prior learning, including EYFS, to ensure high quality cognition and retention. The modules are carefully sequenced to enable children to purposefully layer their learning from previous lessons which facilitates the acquisition of key historic knowledge. Modules are revisited either later in the year or in the following year as part of a spaced retrieval practice method to enable children to retain key information and vocabulary.

At Castle Hill, we aim for our pupils to:

Possess a secure understanding of the chronology of the time periods studied
Identify and draw on similarities and differences within given time frames and across previously taught history
Understand the cause and consequence of various events in history
Understand and explain how different interpretations of historical events may occur
Become increasingly critical and analytical thinkers
Use historical terms and vocabulary with confidence and understanding

Aims of the History Curriculum

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

know and understand the history of Britain 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.