History at Tritlington Church of England First School
“Let your light shine as a historian”
Intent
History is a subject we are passionate about at Tritlington Church of England First School and we want our pupils to love history! We strive to develop young historians who are inspired to investigate, learn and interpret the past both locally and worldwide. We offer the pupils opportunities to engage with the abundant local history of both Northumberland and Britain, as well as exploring ancient civilisations from around the world. We aim to spark the children’s curiosity to learn more about the history of their locality, and the impact historical events and significant individuals have had upon the area.
Implementation
At Tritlington one unit of History is taught each term. We teach the National Curriculum and our long term plan has clear expectations for the progression of knowledge and skills from EYFS to maximise depth of learning for all pupils.
We have developed a consistent approach to our teaching where we begin each new topic with an assessment of the pupil’s current knowledge and vocabulary using the KWL strategy (What I Know, What I would like to Know and What I have Learned) from which a learning sequence is constructed.
Key vocabulary has been identified for each unit of work taught and is presented to the pupils in the form of “target words.” These are explicitly taught during the learning sequence, and teachers and pupils continually assess the understanding of these. To broaden pupil’s knowledge and ensure the retention of information and skills, regular “Flashback” activities and purposeful recapping are part of our lesson sequence.
The core knowledge for each unit is summarised into knowledge organisers which are available in pupil’s books and also via our interactive whiteboards for the teachers and pupils to refer to during lessons in a purposeful way. We seek to reinforce, consolidate and extend learning by providing regular challenges to the pupils both during lessons and as home learning projects. These provide teachers with an effective and meaningful form of assessment against core knowledge.
At Tritlington, in each year group from EYFS through to Year 4, pupils learn about:
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Events beyond living memory
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Significant historical events in Britain and in the local area of Northumberland
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Significant individuals and their achievements, with a focus on local individuals who have made an impact in history
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Pupils in Years 3 and 4 also learn about the achievements of the Earliest Civilisations
An important part of our history curriculum is our local history and heritage studies. We believe it is important that our pupils have an understanding of what was happening in Northumberland at different periods in time and to see how it compares to what was happening elsewhere. We plan a variety of educational visits including Roman Vindolanda to learn about Roman history in Britain, local castles to learn about the Norman Conquest and museums to learn about significant figures such as Grace Darling.
Through studying local history and heritage studies we aim to enable our pupils to:
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Understand how and why their local community has develop in the way that it has
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Investigate the people and events that took place where they live
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Develop a sense of historical curiosity about their area and a sense of place
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Learn about Northumberland was involved in, and responded to and was affected by regional, national and international events and actions - was Northumberland typical or was it unique?
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Understand why Northumberland is worth knowing about
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Be aware of the features of their local community and the extent to which they are an asset
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Strengthen their chronological understanding and their appreciation of how and why some things change and some remain the same
We have an increasing bank of high quality historical resources that support our teaching and learning and provide pupils with the tools they need to become historians. Our collection of high quality artefact boxes promote discussions and inspire our pupils to ask questions and initiate investigation based learning.
Impact
At Tritlington we continuously develop and grow our History curriculum and expertise. We monitor and evaluate the impact of our curriculum, teaching practices and the children’s progress.
An action plan is written each year which is agreed upon by our History lead and teaching staff, which we all work towards collaboratively, ensuring History within our school continues to develop.
Through supportive and progression-focused learning walks, our History lead is able to observe the implementation of the school’s curriculum and identify both areas of strength and areas of development to inform our next steps in History. Children are encouraged to talk about their learning in History both inside and outside of the classroom, making links across other areas of the wider curriculum.
We set high expectations and children present their learning purposefully and to a high standard in a variety of ways so evidence of progress and high quality learning is clear. Our books and regular discussion with children evidence our pupil’s competency and confidence to communicate their historical investigation skills and depth of knowledge in a variety of ways. Through collaborative book moderation and teacher discussion, teachers are able to ensure consistency in History across the school and seek to develop our next steps in our continuous progress in the subject area.
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