History

At Pluckley Church of England Primary School we work to ensure that all children thrive in a Christian centred community in which they are encouraged to enjoy, learn and achieve together. We expect our children to be secure in the knowledge that they are safe and cared for – both by us and by God; able to enjoy their time at school; challenge to achieve their best through a high-quality education and happy in the knowledge they are each celebrated for their individuality as well as their achievements.

Our History curriculum aims to spark our pupils' curiosity about the past and events that have occurred and encourage them to be inquisitive about the lives of significant individuals who have shaped our world today. We want to develop our pupils' abilities to conduct their own research and use a range of reliable sources of information to ask and answer questions about the past. This is important for our pupils so that they can reflect upon the past to help them shape their knowledge of the future and the impact that they could have on it.

History lessons at Pluckley Church of England Primary school support the young people in our care to become:

• Resilient and ambitious children who strive for outstanding outcomes, who use their initiative and are unafraid of making mistakes.
  • We teach history lessons that regularly challenge our pupils' understanding of the world through questioning how society has reached the point we have today. We encourage our pupils to carry out thorough enquiries into historical events, time periods and people, exploring a wide variety of sources of information until they have developed an informed knowledge about a subject.  
• Successful learners with a thirst for knowledge who are curious and self-motivated to learn and achieve.
  • We model asking engaging questions that develop healthy debates about the past and encourage the children to develop their own questions for enquiries. Our History lessons often allow for partner or group work so that our pupils can learn and achieve together.   
• Young people with a strong spiritual foundation who thrive by embodying our REFLECT values in all that they think, say and do.
  • History lessons regularly provide opportunities for our pupils to demonstrate our Christian REFLECT values. Pupils often show leadership and cooperation when working collaboratively to place historical events, people and periods on a timeline as well as modelling to one another how to use resources like the internet appropriately to find the answers to historical questions. Our pupils demonstrate Respect and Trust in our History lessons by listening to and respecting other people's opinions and ideas, and by taking opportunities to empathise with others, argue a point of view and reach their own conclusions - essential skills that will help them in adult life.
• Well-rounded individuals who have a range of strategies to support positive mental health; enabling them to live fulfilled and happy lives.
  • History lessons provide a safe environment for our pupils to express their opinions and ideas without judgement. We provide opportunities, through P4C questions, for our pupils to voice their reasoning for why they have answered a question the way that they have, as well as being respectful and listening to other people's points of view.  
• Confident, responsible individuals who have a strong sense of community and strive to make a positive contribution in their future role in the 21st Century and beyond.
  • We provide opportunities for our pupils to investigate the past and how it influences the present to equip our children with a secure, coherent knowledge of British, local and world history. We believe that this will help empower them with contextual knowledge as well as historical based skills to go forward in the future to support them to succeed.

How is History taught across the school?

We teach History once a week, alongside Geography, following a two year cycle to ensure content and skills are covered across each year group as well as key stages. We follow the National Curriculum and use a combination of PlanBee and Inspire Education resources as the basis for our teaching and learning, however these are supplemented by any other appropriate resources or activities that staff choose, using their own professional judgement in order to best meet the needs of the children in their classes.

We follow our school pedagogical model of ‘Accelerated learning’ which includes the 4 phases; Connect, Activate, Demonstrate and Consolidate. Our connect phase allows our children to recap on Historical skills and knowledge previously taught in the current term through our ‘Spaced learning’ questions or allows the children to understand how their current learning (New knowledge) is building upon their previous learning (Prior knowledge) from their History lessons in past years. During the active phase of learning children are exposed to information and content in many ways, including pictures, text and videos and are encouraged to partake in discussions with partners or groups to ask and answer questions, that helps develop a positive engagement with their learning. The demonstration phase provides our pupils with the opportunity to show their level of understanding about the Historical concepts they have been learning about and pupils are provided with a range of ways to complete their learning to ensure that all children have their needs met. Finally, our consolidate phase allows our pupils to collate their learning to answer or discuss context based or skills based questions or statements, permitting them to explain their ideas and reasoning.    

In EYFS history is not taught as a distinct subject, rather it is explored through the specific area of learning: ‘Understanding the World’. During this, the children explore people, culture and communities as well as past and present. This will be done through explorative learning, with the children experiencing the world around them and in the local area.

How do we know what the children have learnt and understood?

• Questioning during lessons
• End of unit quizzes
• Big write to answer the big question