History

At Thurton CE Primary School, we aim to deliver a high quality history curriculum which ignites an excitement and passion for learning about Britain’s past, as well as the key histories of some countries around the world.

Children will have a chronological and coherent knowledge and understanding of a number of time periods throughout British history and will be able to articulate this knowledge using a range of key vocabulary. An increasing focus as the children move through the school will be learning to think critically about the way information is presented as they study a range of sources and consider how people’s lives have changed.  Learning is progressive through the school and children will build upon prior learning of content and skills.

Children will leave Thurton CE Primary as experts on a range of different historical periods as well as having a life-long love of history learning!

Progression of Historical Themes

Our historical themes are revisited throughout the school so that new learning is built on previous knowledge and understanding to help children successfully remember more. At the start of each unit, children recall what has been learnt before to help new knowledge ‘stick’ to the previous learning.

Progression of Learning

Children will have a chance to practise the key historical skills throughout the school in a progressive manner, as well as covering the key content laid out in the National Curriculum. We have a topic based approach to learning which means that history teaching is fully immersive and children have a wide variety of cross-curricular learning experiences. Our learning is often enquiry based, meaning children develop an ability to collect and present their views to answer an overarching question, which often leads to a deeper level of learning and understanding.

Succession of History Knowledge

Progression of Historical Enquiry and Disciplinary Knowledge

Each unit of learning is presented to the children as a learning journey with a clearly defined end point which will demonstrate their understanding. This allows the children to understand the small steps in learning that need to take place to achieve the larger goal at the end of the journey.

Example Year 3 and 4 History Unit

Teaching Tube Map:

Teacher Guide:

Example Year 5 and 6 History Unit

Teaching Tube Map:

Teacher Guide:

Teachers have a good understanding of prior and future learning in history and will, wherever possible, link history teaching to what children have learnt before and what they will go on to learn so children are confident on how the different time periods link with each other. Teachers will also be explicit on the skills children are using so children are clear on how and why they are completing particular tasks.

As children move through the learning journey, they are able to track how well they have performed at each stop through the use of colour coded feedback. At the end of each learning journey, knowledge and skills are reviewed and assessed. This may be done through answering historical enquiry questions, quizzes, learning cafés in which the children can present their learning, curriculum days or literacy writing.

More broadly, children will understand how key people, events, conflicts and inventions have influenced and shaped our world today and will be able to take these lessons and apply them to their thinking about the future.

Characteristics of an effective HISTORIAN at Thurton CE Primary School: