Curriculum - History
Hernhill Church of England Primary School has universal ambitions for every child, whatever their background or circumstances. Teachers are knowledgeable of and incorporate the Mainstream Core Standards to ensure all children learn and thrive at Hernhill.
The rationale for the History curriculum in Hernhill C of E School is to inspire children’s curiosity and interest in the past while developing their understanding and knowledge of events in the past, and how these influence our lives today. Children need to learn about both substantive and disciplinary knowledge. Substantive knowledge includes the information about the past in terms of people, events, dates, states of affairs and places. Hernhill’s Key Stage 2 substantive concepts are:
- Lifestyles (aspects of civilization such as homes, food, clothing, leisure and entertainment)
- Monarchy and Parliament
- Kingdoms, Empires and Invasion
- Trade
Disciplinary knowledge relates to how historians learn about the past and construct their understanding of it. Teaching should equip children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps children to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
We aim to teach children a sense of chronology, and through this they will develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. We intend children to investigate these past people and events through the use of enquiry, comparison, analysis and interpretation and to use a range of high quality resources and artefacts to support this.
Anglo Saxon cooking experience
CURRICULUM APPROACH
Across the school, we deliver many of the curriculum areas using a thematic approach. We deliver the National Curriculum content with science, history or geography being the key drivers for a topic with the subjects of art, design technology, music, computing and PSHE added to enrich the topic. RE, PE, MFL and maths are taught as separate subjects.
We operate a two-year rolling programme of topics with some topics in Year A and some in Year B. This enables year groups and teachers to work together on a similar theme. Our school’s Christian values are interwoven into each topic. Every term, each class also have a "Big Question" to ponder on.
Teachers follow a clear planning structure for our theme-led curriculum. Curriculum guides are produced to ensure the correct National Curriculum coverage and to outline the key learning questions/enquiries for each term or half term.
POLICY