ST MARY'S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL
Being a historian
Our Mission Statement
Celebrating Excellence through our Faith and Learning
Rationale for teaching History at St Mary's:
At St Mary’s we believe that our children need a curriculum that allows them to become enthusiastic and engaged learners. Our intention is that pupils will leave St Mary's able to ask and answer questions about the past, think critically about the impact of the past, and understand cultural and societal changes in the world.
The knowledge and skills taught in each subject are set out in The National Curriculum (Department for Education, 2014). We have set these out in a year-group based sequence of learning (see History Progression of Skills Document and History Topic Overviews), which allows progression by building upon and revisiting knowledge and skills learnt in previous years.
How do we teach History at St Mary's?
At St Mary's we follow an Enquiry based curriculum. This involves seuqential, connected and progressive learning based on The National Curriculum.
Learning is progressive and follows a knowledge building pattern to ensure confidence and depth in learning. History is embedded within enquiries and children are encouraged to think of themselves as historians in their lessons. Enquiry questions underpin the term of learning, in which the children undertake an investigation to answer the question. One example is 'How can we learn about people in the past?'. This question gives year 3 children the opportunity to learn about chronology, primary and secondary sources, famous artists, and historical methods of critical thinking. At the end of the enquiry, the children complete a final challenge to demonstrate and round off their learning.
Our enquiries seek to give pupils experiential opportunities for learning. This equips them will skills that they can apply outside of the classroom and will enable them to be confident, self-assured, able adults. We like to make children aware of the history of their local area where possible to ensure that it is relevant to them, whilst maintaining links to the wider world. We seek visitors and experiences from the local community to enrich learning, including professional and close-to-home sources such as children's families. We make good use of local businesses and industries to support the cultural history of Bristol. This includes visits to Aerospace, MShed, and Three Brooks Nature Reserve.
How we assess History at St Mary's
In History, we nurture in our children the historical knowledge and transferable skills to become critical thinkers, eloquent communicators, and empathetic young people who are curious about the past and how it links to their present and to their futures.
Pupils will be able to…
- know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind.
- gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘slavery’ and ‘parliament’.
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts.
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
- gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Progression as Historians
Click here to see how children at St Mary's progress as historians.
If you want to be a Historian at home, try these ideas:
Visit some websites:
Activities:
- Look at old photos and videos at home
- Be a historian in your local area - visit landmarks, look for old postboxes, cenotaph
- Visit your local museum and library for free resources
For more information about History at St Mary's, please contact Miss E Blackwell (Year 5 Class Teacher).