Curriculum: History
The Intent of our History Curriculum
Our intent is that our teaching of History will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim for it to inspire pupils’ curiosity about the past and to know more about the past. We aim to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. Through the teaching of History we endeavour to teach children to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
The Implementation of our History Curriculum
In Early Years, History is taught via the Early Learning Goals linked to the Specific Area ‘Understanding the World’. The majority of learning in this area occurs through adult intervention when the children are in continuous provision. However, during their time in Early Years the children will listen to stories set in different locations, engage in a unit titled ‘All About Me’ and participate in topic led work about the world they live in.
By the end of Early Years therefore, the children should be able to:
– Talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society;
– Know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
– Understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling.
In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 History Lessons focus on developing ‘Knowledge and Knowhow’, Historical skills and understanding how to work as Historians. Children have real life experiences and learn about History in an active and creative way, making connections with prior historical learning and other subject areas such as Geography and Science. We use heritage projects, visits to places of interest and visitors to school to provide further relevant and contextual learning, engaging members of the community in children’s learning and providing positive role models from the community for children to learn from.
The Impact of our History Curriculum
Outcomes in History and literacy books, evidence a broad and balanced history curriculum and demonstrate the children’s acquisition of identified key knowledge. Emphasis is placed on analytical thinking and questioning which helps pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Pupils are curious to know more about the past. Pupils learn to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
Take a look at the Gallery below to see what our children have been getting up to…
Knowledge Organisers
At The Willows we use Knowledge Organisers to help our children, and staff, ensure the key objectives are covered.
Year 3 History Knowledge Organisers
Year 5 History Knowledge Organisers
Useful Documents
Curriculum Map
Progression Document
EYFS
Year 6 Imperial War Museum
Year 6 visited the Imperial War Museum at Salford Quays on Monday. They enhanced their knowledge of the First and Second World Wars, which they have been learning about in history lessons. All the children were very respectful and enjoyed reading and looking at the...
Year 4 Egyptian Day
Year 4 have been spending the last half term learning about 'The Ancient Egyptians' in history. On Monday 14th July, the children had a wonderful visit from a member of the Lancashire Heritage Museums team, who led an Egyptian workshop for the children all morning....
Year 5 History
Year 5 had a fabulous afternoon when Joseph came to teach us all about Ancient Greek houses. The best part was that we got to build our own houses out of Lego!
Year 4 Egyptians
In history this half term, the children in Year 4 are learning all about the Ancient Egyptians! We thought ahead and did a lot of learning last half term about the River Nile in our geography topic of rivers, so our first few lessons where we discovered how the...
Year 5 VE Celebration Day
Year 5 had a fabulous day learning all about VE Day and the evacuees during the Second World War. We watched videos of people recounting what it was like for them and explored images of the children being sent away to the countryside. Then we imagined that we were an...
Year 6 VE Day Celebration
Year 6 had a great day celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day. We started the day leading a liturgy to introduce VE Day. We then did lots of activities and some of the pictures are below.
Year 5 Anglo-Saxon Visit
Year 5 had a fantastic morning when Mildthryth the Anglo-Saxon came to visit. She taught us all about where she and her people came from and how they settled into Britain forming Angleland and eventually one united kingdom. We learnt about Anglo-Saxon life such as how...
Year 3 – Roman Recruits!
On Tuesday Year 3 had a very special visitor. At first, we didn't understand what he was saying as he was talking to us ion Latin! We found out that his name was Marcus and that he had come to train us up for the Roman army. We spent the morning learning Latin...
Year 3 – Roman Spies!
Year 3 spent the afternoon being Roman spies! They had to imagine they had been sent on a mission to find out what Britain was like before the Romans invaded. Their task was to find out what they could and report back to their commanders to help them prepare for the...
Master Bakers
We have loved learning about the Great Fire of London and really enjoyed being Bakers! We made dough which we shaped into different rolls to use in our Bakery Role Play Area in class. We then made a huge loaf of bread to share together.
Year 4 Plague Day
On Thursday 12th December, the Year 4 children had a theme day about their topic this half term, The Great Plague. The Plague Day was aimed at consolidating the children's learning about how the plague started, what the symptoms and remedies of the plague were and...
Year 4 Plague Doctor Visit!
To bring our topic of The Great Plague to life, Year 4 had two very special visitors join them in class last week! A plague doctor and his young apprentice came to Year 4 to explain all about the remedies and 'cures' plague doctors from the 1600's would administer to...
The Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of LondonThe children have loved learning about The Great Fire of London. They learned all about what life was like in 17th Century London. They learned about how the fire started in Pudding Lane and why it spread so quickly. They found out all about...
Year 3 Stone Age DT
Year 3 were asked to design and make suitable packages that could transport a Stone Age artefact to a museum in London. The children had to research existing packaging, design their own package based on the design brief, make a prototype and then make their own...
Year 6 – Remembrance Prayer and Liturgy
On Thursday, Year 6 led our Remembrance Day Prayer and Liturgy. I could not be prouder of how well the children spoke, presented themselves and supported our school to learn about Remembrance Day in such a respectful and reverent way. Well done Year 6.
Year 6 Imperial War Museum Visit
As part of our History topic, WW1 and WW2, Year 6 took the train and the tram to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester.
Year 3 Visit St Michael’s!
On Tuesday, Year 3 walked to St Michael's Church to visit the Roman exhibition. They were led in a very interesting session about Kirkham as a Roman town by Mike Glover who told them all about the big archeological digs that had taken place over years to collect the...
Year 3 Survival Treasure Hunt!
We are loving learning about the Stone Age in Year 3. We are learning all about the different periods of the Stone Age and know that during the Mesolithic period (middle Sone Age), people were hunter-gatherers in order to survive. In teams, we thought about what life...
Year 3 Create Cave Art!
Year 3 looked at the famous Caves of Lascaux, in France. These paintings are estimated to be 17,300 years old. They consist mostly of primitive images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time. The images...
Year 6 WW1 Soldier
Earlier this week, we were visited by Sergeant Powell from the East Lancashire Regiment. He told us all about life during WW1. We learned lots from him. Thank you.
Year 3 – Stone Age Fun!
Year 3 had a fabulous Stone Age Day packed full of fun and adventure! The children spent the morning in our Forest School area with Mrs Hayes completing lots of different Stone Age activities. They looked at primitive ways of fire lighting and used fire strikers to...