History
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Intent |
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At West Leigh Infant School, we aim to inspire children’s curiosity, stimulating all children’s interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past. We teach children a sense of chronology, in order to develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding. We use our strong links with the community to enhance the children’s awareness of historical development in their own locality. We aim to make all children aware of the actions of important people in history and enable children to know about significant events in British history, whilst appreciating how things have changed over time. We carefully select the significant people that the children learn about to provide inspiration from different cultures and genders. Key skills and knowledge are identified and taught with cross-curricular links to enhance the children’s learning. We regularly review our curriculum to ensure progression across the school, and to ensure that the children are equipped with the knowledge and skills within an ever-changing world. |
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Implementation |
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History is blocked into topics to allow children to focus on developing their knowledge and skills, studying each topic in depth. At West Leigh, we use knowledge organisers to highlight the key skills, knowledge and vocabulary of each topic and these are shared with children, staff and parents. Prior knowledge is assessed at the beginning of each topic and this is used to inform planning to build upon the children’s understanding. In each lesson, previous learning is recapped and links are made across topics to encourage the children’s sense of chronology. In order to reinforce the children’s learning, key questions are asked regularly at different points in the school week. As often as possible, trips, workshops, visitors and artefacts are used to enrich our History topics and to further ignite the children’s curiosity and enthusiasm. Cross-curricular links with other subjects, such as D&T and English, allow the children to explore our topics in more depth and present their learning in a variety of ways. Assessment of the children’s progress within each topic is achieved through teacher observation, quizzes and independent projects, and the children’s progress is monitored through termly data collection. Subject teams regularly review plans across the three year groups to ensure the progression of the children across the school but also revisits and rehearses the key skills for historical enquiry. This is supported by our progression map that breaks the key skills and knowledge into those expected for each year group. Our three subject team leads belong to the three different year groups and through book-looks, learning walks and team meetings they are able to have a clear view of the teaching of History across the school. |
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Impact |
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This curriculum design will lead to excellent progress throughout the school, relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills. Children will therefore be expected to leave West Leigh reaching at least age-related expectations for History. Our History curriculum will also lead pupils to be enthusiastic history learners, evidenced in a range of ways, including pupil voice and their work.
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