History

Quality of Education

At Uplands, we believe that high-quality history lessons inspire children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians.

By linking learning to a range of topics, including Ancient Egyptians and Greeks, Romans, Stone Age, WW2, Anglo Saxons, Vikings and the 1960’s Youth Culture.

Children have opportunities to investigate and interpret the past, understand chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world and to be able to communicate historically.

Our school is committed to an inclusive, creative, and exciting curriculum, based around high quality teaching and learning along with positive learning behaviours. As part of our goal to become a ‘Rights-respecting School and further embed the ‘Respect for All’ ethos.

We use the 2014 History Programme of Study as the basis for our curriculum planning in history, but we have adapted this to the local context by building on the successful units of work already in place. We ensure that there are opportunities for children of all abilities to develop their skills and knowledge in each unit and we built planned progression into the scheme of work so that the children are increasingly challenged as they move up through the school.

We teach history throughout topic-based curriculum. We organise several visits to sites of interest and have a wide range of historical artefacts that we use with the children as well as organised visits within school. Pupils will continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history. The children’s understanding and knowledge of historical facts will be broadened through the teaching of the following key elements: Chronology, interpretation of history, historical enquiry, organisation and communication and range and depth.

In our school history makes a significant contribution to citizenship education by teaching about how Britain developed as a democratic society. We teach children to understand how events in the past have influenced our lives today; we also teach them to investigate these past events and, by so doing, to develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem-solving.

Children are taught within mixed ability class groups. All children have a Knowledge Organiser of the topics they are studying at the start of a new history unit. These are discussed and explored with the class teacher at the start of the topics. The children can use the Knowledge Organisers throughout the topic to refer to for vocabulary, knowledge, skills, timeline and diagrams to enhance their learning.

At the start of every new academic year, children are given a history timeline of events and ‘Thinking about’ cards which questions the children on past topics they have covered in previous year groups (for Year 3 the questions are based on KS1 topics) and upcoming topics that they will cover. This allows children to revisit past knowledge, develop their timeline reading skills and have an insight into what they will be learning.

Children complete a ‘cold and hot task’ process where children identify their own gaps of knowledge at the start of a topic and then assess their gained knowledge of the topic through the use of the hot task.

There are 2 to 3 history topics covered in each year group that is studied for half a term to a term. Each history topic includes a WOW starter and has a themed visit out of school or a specialist visitor into school. At least one of these topics includes use of our Now Press Play resource, which encourages experiential learning.

The teaching of history provides opportunities for: group work, mixed ability work, whole class teaching, independent work, peer assessment and self-assessment.

By implementing the intent, children should be confident in the following areas:

To foster in children an interest in the past and to develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer.
- To enable children to know about significant events in British history and to appreciate how things have changed over time.
- To develop a sense of chronology.
- To know and understand how the British system of democratic government has developed and, in so doing, to contribute to a child’s citizenship education.
- To understand how Britain is part of a wider European culture and to study some aspects of European history.
- To have some knowledge and understanding of historical development in the wider world.
- To help children understand society and their place within it, so that they develop a sense of their cultural heritage.
- To develop in children the skills of enquiry, investigation, analysis, evaluation and presentation.

Assessment will initially come from questioning in class and marking of history books.

We assess children’s work in history by making informal judgements as we observe them during each history lesson. On completion of a piece of work, the teacher marks the work and comments as necessary.

Children are teacher assessed at the end of each topic of work according to key learning objectives and skills. A grade of: Working towards, working at or working beyond age related expectations is given. Assessments are recorded by the class teacher and monitored by the history co-ordinator.

The subject leader works alongside the SLT to monitor standards of teaching and learning.

The work of the history subject leader also involves supporting colleagues in the teaching of history, being informed about current developments in the subject, and providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school.