Curriculum Overview
Intent
The aims of the History curriculum at Our Lady of the Assumption are:
- To give our children an understanding of the passing of time (chronology)
- To ensure that all our children have an in-depth knowledge of daily life during various periods of times and are able to compare these with their daily lives in the present.
- To ensure that all our children have an in-depth knowledge of significant events and people throughout history and the impact they have had on our lives today.
- To give our children the skills to be historians, to be able to find out about the past in different ways, using a variety of different sources – they will be able to explain why certain sources and methods of research are more reliable than others.
- To ensure our children understand the relevance of history as a subject and the impact it has had on the area in which they live.
Implementation
In Early Years, History is taught within half-termly units as part of the children’s development of their Understanding of the World. A focus is placed on the children learning about themselves and their personal histories.
In Key Stage 1, History is taught through a mixture of half-termly and termly units that build the children’s knowledge of changes over time, along with knowledge of significant people and events. In Key Stage 2, History is taught through six termly depth studies, covering significant periods of British and World History.
Every class has a timeline which is already populated with previous learning. As the year goes on the events, people and time periods studied are added to this to build on children’s understanding of the passing of time (chronology).
| Year Group | Units | ||
| Autumn | Spring | Summer | |
| Nursery (Half termly units) | I Am Special All Aboard | What A Lot of Growing | Down on the Farm |
| Reception (Half termly units) | Bonfire Night | Stomp, Roar, Here come the Dinosaurs What’s in the box? Toys | A Street Through Time |
| Year 1 | Old School Days A study of OLA in the past | Queen Elizabeth I | Beside the Seaside A study of seaside holidays in the past |
| Year 2 | The Great Fire of London | Flying High A study of history of flight | |
| Year 3 | Walk like an Egyptian | ||
| Year 4 | The Romans are Coming! A study of Roman Britain | Children of the Revolution A study of Victorian Children and Industrialisation | |
| Year 5 | Invaders and Settlers A study of the Anglo Saxons and Vikings | Ancient Greece What did the Greeks do for us? | |
| Year 6 | Coventry Blitz | ||
| Whole school Theme weeks | Black History Month The Kingdom of Benin (KS2) | Stone Age/ (KS2) | |
Knowledge and Skills Through the History curriculum, children build knowledge linked to core threads of learning, along with development of focus historical skills:
| History Threads of Learning | Historical Skills |
| Daily life through time Significant events Significant people Local History | Chronology Historical Enquiry |
Overview of Threads of Learning:
| Threads of Learning: | N | R | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Daily Life through time | Daily life & daily routines Their life in the past | Own life story and family history Festivals in the past Own ex-periences Then/ now | Changes in living memory – own school Castles – daily life/ Bucking-ham Palace Seaside holidays in the past & now | Great Fire of London – houses London then and now Changes to air travel | Daily life in Ancient Egypt | Daily life in Roman Britain Daily life in Victorian time – rich / poor | Daily life Anglo-Saxons Daily life in Ancient Greece – demo-cracy, Olympics etc. | Daily life & impact of WWII on daily life |
| events | Starting Nursery Birthdays /Christ-mas etc. | Bonfire Night Festivals e.g. Diwali, Chinese New Year | Opening of OLA school | Great Fire of London The First Flight | Discovery of Tutan-khamun’s tomb | Roman invasion of Britain Bou-dicca’s rebellion | Viking invasion at Lindis-farne | WWII – Coventry Blitz |
| people | Grand-parents & signifi-cant family members | Mary Anning | Elizabeth I Elizabeth II Charles I | Samuel Pepys Wright Brothers Frank Whittle | Tutan-khamun/ Cleopatra | Bou-dicca Queen Victoria | Athelstan (1st king of England) | Winston Churchill |
| Local History | School & local area Kenil-worth Castle | Midlands Air Museum – Whittle | Lunt Fort | Coventry Cathe-dral |
Overview of Historical Skills:
| Historical Skill: | N | R | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Chron-ology | Talk about the passing of time, parts of the school day using a visual timetable e.g. now, when I was a baby… | Use everyday words and phrases to describe the passing of time e.g. now, when I was…, a long time ago Know that time and events can be sequenced in chronological order from earliest to latest | Use everyday words and phrases to describe the passing of time e.g. yesterday, last week, old, new, when my parents/carers were young Use everyday words and phrases to describe the passing of time Order events in/ from their own lives | Recount events and changes in the lives of others Begin to sequence the events of a specific time period e.g. Great Fire of London Use historical words and phrases to describe the passing of time including dates and decades | Explain what a timeline is Use a timeline to sequence / place events Know that a timeline can be divided into BC/BCE AD/CE | Name century dates and dates of significant events from the past Place historically significant events in the right place on a timeline | Place historical events and time periods accurately on a timeline Explain that the past can be divided into time periods Describe the main changes within a period of history (social, religion, political, technological and cultural) | Place historical events and time periods accurately on a timeline Develop a timeline using an appropriate scale, using previous learning to inform scale Describe the main changes within a period of history (social, religion, political, technological and cultural) |
| Histor-ical Enquiry | Compare themselves now to when they were babies Discuss own family members and begin to talk about similarities and differences between them (baby, child, adult, elderly) | Identify some similarities and differences between things in the past and now Discuss own family members and begin to talk about similarities and differences between them (baby, toddler, child, adult, elderly) Know that there is a difference between past and present | Use books, photographs, pictures and objects to find out about the past Ask and answer questions about the past e.g. when, who, what | Use more than one type of source to find out about an event or person from the past Begin to ask and answer questions about the past using evidence to help | Identify primary and secondary sources Use evidence to generate own questions about the past Use a variety of sources to answer questions about the past Compare present day to a specific time period | Evaluate and explain the reliability of primary and secondary sources (justify decisions) Compare two versions of the same event in history and identify differences in the accounts Give reasons why there may be different accounts of history | Know that people in the past represent ideas in a way that persuades others Give clear reasons why there may be different accounts of history Choose reliable sources of evidence to help answer questions Understand that it is important to know that some evidence from the past (and the present) is propaganda, opinion or misinformation and that this affects interpretation of history Give clear reasons why there may be different accounts of history | Use sources of information to form hypotheses about the past Choose reliable sources of evidence to help answer questions and understand that there may be more than one answer to a question Know that some evidence is opinion or misinformation, and that this affects interpretations of history |