Our Lady of the Rosary

History

At Our Lady of the Rosary School, our vision is to transform the lives of our pupils within a Catholic environment by nurturing the wellbeing of each child, promoting the highest academic achievement and instilling a lifelong love of learning. We aim to fulfil our school strap line ‘Faith, Love, Learning’ by igniting a thirst for knowledge and a desire to achieve through an engaging and creative curriculum that promotes the highest academic achievements and prepares our pupils to be successful in their adult life.

Vision...

At Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Primary School, the teaching of History aids pupils in gaining secure knowledge of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Enquiry based learning develops pupils’ curiosity about the past and uses sources to inform judgements. Pupils are encouraged to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence and develop perspective and judgement.

We strive to ensure that pupils are enthusiastic towards History through high quality teaching and engaging lessons. We provide a stimulating enquiry based curriculum, which is progressive and focuses on teaching the skills and knowledge of different periods of time.

These skills are built on throughout the years therefore; they are developing their progressive skills as a Historian.

Pupils investigate sources such as stories, writing and artefacts and answer big questions about the past and how this impacts the world we live in today. Through History, we want our pupils to become confident, create and independent learners. Through historical enquiry we seek to broaden our pupil’s real-life experiences, both inside and outside school through educational visits, visitors, experimentation, exploration and discovery.

Our vision is to ensure in History lessons, our pupils acquire a range of knowledge and skills, which they can then apply to other subjects and in a variety of situations.

As a school, we share and celebrate our history work with pride and express that every child is an Our Lady of the Rosary Historian.

Intent

At Our Lady of the Rosary the History curriculum is designed to develop a pupil’s natural curiosity of local and world history and provide them with a clear understanding of significant periods in British and world history (substantive knowledge). We have a spiral curriculum where key concepts and strands are taught and revisited year on year. In History, our three main strands are Civilisation, Trade and Invention and Conflict and Settlement.   Pupils are taught key concepts through the strands and pupils are encouraged to use prior knowledge and make links.

 

We want our pupils to become historians by answering historical enquiry questions using sources and evidence to investigate and interpret historical evidence before forming conclusions. Pupils will use their knowledge and understanding to present these conclusions by presenting their ideas in a variety of ways. It is important that our pupils have a strong understanding of the society and country in which they live and how events in the past and key historical events have influenced the way in which Britain and the wider world operate today.

Our pupils will be taught a range of vocabulary to describe the past and they will know that the past and the present are different. Vocabulary and language that is more subject specific, and for each year group the words that the children should experience over the course of the year are mapped out in a whole school document. In History, this is organised into ‘chronological understanding’, ‘knowledge of people, places and events’, ‘conceptual knowledge’ and ‘enquiry’ to enable development across different aspects of history.

EYFS

Using direct teaching and continuous provision for the Past and Present ELG Children at the expected level of development will will talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society. They will know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class. Children will understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling.

Key Stage 1

By the end of Key Stage One, pupils will learn a range of substantive and disciplinary knowledge and will understand that the world existed before their lifetime. They will also learn that knowledge of the past has been obtained in different ways and way in which people lived and behaved will be different dependent on the time period and their circumstances. Pupils will learn that historians are people who find out and tell stories about the past and they find their information out from different pieces of evidence and artefacts.

Key Stage 2

By the end of Key Stage Two, pupils will understand how historians investigate the past,  how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts and apply these skills to answer historical enquiry questions. Pupils will understand that sources have to be critically analysed and they will know the difference between a source and evidence. They will be able to question the validity of a source or historical interpretation by understanding that the more information that can be gathered about a period, the stronger the narrative that you can build about it. Pupils will be able to chronologically order periods of British and world history and be able to talk about trends and changes to culture, religion, beliefs and societies over time. The concept of time will be referred to in various ways such as centuries and decades and there will be an understanding of how the past has influenced the world we live in today.

 Implementation

  • History is taught over 6 weeks covering national curriculum objectives within a unit.  
  • At the start of each Unit of Work pupils will review previous learning and will have the opportunity to share what they already know.
  • Each history lesson begins with an enquiry question. 
  • Substantive knowledge is taught through individual lessons, the disciplinary knowledge and concepts develop as the unit progresses.  
  • Every year group will build upon the learning from the previous year therefore developing depth of understanding and progression of skills (chronological understanding, knowledge and interpretation, and  historical enquiry)
  • Retrieval is done at the start of each lesson to give pupils the opportunity to retrieve historical knowledge from their long term memory.  In order to support pupils in their ability to ‘know more and remember more’ there are regular opportunities to review the learning taken place in previous topics as well as previous lessons.
  • Timelines of British and world history and revisited to embed the chronology of periods and events.  
  • Pupils are assessed against a series of endpoints, showing whether they have accurately understood and retained key knowledge.
  • Pupils will have access to quality artefacts, sources and resources.
  • Pupils will ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
  • Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion.
  • Evidence of pupil work is recorded in pupils History book and the Enquiry question is answered at the end of each unity in pupils’ knowledge portfolio.
  • Outcomes of work are regularly monitored to ensure that they reflect a sound understanding of the key identified knowledge.
  • Assessment is informed by observations during lessons, verbal feedback, pupil voice and work scrutiny.
  • Summative judgements (Working Towards/Working At/Working Above age-related Expectations) are recorded for history at the end of each term (KS1 and KS2).
  • An end of year overall summative judgement is made in end of year reports for all KS1 and KS2 pupils (EYFS profile assessment - ELG Understanding the World).  
  • Effective use of educational visits and visitors are planned to enrich and provide first-hand learning experiences for pupils.
  • Cross-curricular links are planned for and allow children to deepen their understanding across the curriculum, including the use of geography, mathematics and science. 

 Impact

Pupils will become increasingly critical and analytical with their thinking, developing the skills to make informed and balanced judgements based on their knowledge of the past. Pupils will have a sound understanding of British history and the way that their life in Britain today has been shaped by different civilisations and societies. They will know and understand key historical facts about time periods in History and how events from the past have shaped our lives today.

 As pupils progress into Key Stage Two, they can talk confidently about events further in the past with accuracy, they can compare different civilisations around the world, understand how trade and invention impacted Britain and the wider world discuss different conflicts that have taken place and how settlements have formed and changed the landscape of different civilisations. Pupils will have a broad vocabulary, which will enable them to articulate their understanding of taught concepts. Pupils will have the skills to critically analyse sources of evidence and pull together conclusions about past events. They have a good cultural capital of events that are beyond living memory this is achieved through participating in high-quality visits to further appreciate the impact of history.

We have high aspirations for all pupils, which will see them through to further study, work and be successful in their adult life.

History overview 2024