St John the Evangelist CE Primary School

History

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey

Intent: History fires pupils’ curiosity about the past in Britain and the wider world. Our school’s ambition is to shape passionate and aspirational historians who are curious to know more about the past and how they could make a positive difference to the future. We want our children to understand how events in the past have influenced and shaped our lives today. We want our children to ask questions, think critically, analyse sources and understand that history can sometimes be contested. The units taught enable pupils to construct arguments and support them to become analytical thinkers who can question human motivation and society with skill and confidence.

Implementation: The history curriculum has been carefully sequenced to ensure pupils make progress through building their knowledge of the past, and of how historians study the past and construct accounts. We have selected and designed our units of teaching carefully so that our curriculum includes diverse narratives and voices. Within our classrooms, we follow rich and ambitious lines of enquiry by answering questions such as, ‘how have the Ancient Greeks influenced our lives?’

In our history curriculum, we have planned for key concepts that run through our units of learning. These are invasion, settlement, law, trade, civilisation, democracy, monarchy and religion. By carefully mapping these concepts across the units and revisiting them in different sequences of learning, we ensure children are able to make links and connections and gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts. Key vocabulary is also planned for and throughout each unit of work, teachers ensure that children acquire and use subject specific language.

Teaching develops pupils’ historical knowledge and their historical analysis simultaneously. Interwoven into learning journeys is the teaching of concepts continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and historical significance. Alongside historical knowledge (substantive) there is a high focus on the development of specific historical skills (disciplinary). The teaching of history is intended to equip pupils to ask pertinent questions about the past, analyse evidence, think critically, appreciate different perspectives, and develop informed judgements.

Reading opportunities within history lessons are carefully planned, with key texts identified in each learning journey. In addition, the curriculum is enriched through a wide range of educational visits, visitors and interactive experiences.

EYFS: History in EYFS focuses on understanding time and change. Children explore their own lives, like birthdays or family events, and share personal stories. They learn about the past through familiar objects, like old toys such as teddies or dinosaurs, or tales of significant figures, such as kings or inventors. This connects to ‘Understanding the World’, encouraging curiosity about ‘then and now’. Sequencing activities, like ordering daily routines, introduce chronological thinking. Practitioners use photos or role-play to make history relatable. These early experiences help children grasp how things change over time, building a foundation for historical inquiry in later years.

Impact: Assessment strategies and tasks focus on the ‘key content’ that children will need to know and remember to support their future learning. This will include knowledge related to the substantiative concepts of invasion, settlement, law, trade, civilisation, democracy, monarchy and religion, as their chronological understanding. Disciplinary knowledge is assessed alongside substantive knowledge, for example, pupils’ knowledge of sources of evidence used by historians for a particular enquiry or their knowledge of particular historical interpretations. Retrieval tasks are carefully built into each learning journey, with teachers identifying misconceptions or knowledge gaps and then adjusting planning to address these. Teachers use the subject assessment grids to record pupils’ learning and this then informs future units of work and teachers.

Curriculum Plans:

Click the links below to download the long term plan and progression documents:

Long Term Plan and Knowledge Progression

Progression in Disciplinary Concepts and Historical Enquiry

Click below to download the year group History Learning Journeys:

Year 1 Autumn Term - A Trip Down Memory Lane

Year 1 Spring Term - Kings and Queens

Year 1 Summer Term - Seaside Holidays in the Past

Year 2 Autumn Term - Travel and Transport

Year 2 Spring Term - Explorers

Year 2 Summer Term - The Great Fire of London

Year 3 Autumn Term - Tomb Raiders