"How do you know who you are unless you know where you've come from?

How can you tell what's going to happen, unless you know what's happened before?"

Tony Robinson, Actor and Presenter

INTENT

Loxley’s History provision aims to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Throughout their time at Loxley, children will develop a broad knowledge of Britain’s past and the people and experiences that have shaped their country into what it is today, as well as a wider understanding of the chronological narrative of the wider world and its impact on Britain. We will reflect on the complexity of people’s lives, the diversity and similarities of various societies, beliefs and lifestyles as well as know the reasons for the expansion and dissolution of civilisations and empires in the past. As Historians, we aim for pupils to develop the skills to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, compare and contrast evidence and develop perspective and judgement. We aim to teach the children to appreciate how we can learn from the successes and follies of past human endeavour and use this knowledge to reflect on how we should move forward as a society.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our History provision has been carefully constructed to support the unique nature of our small school setting and its mixed-aged classes, taking into consideration the latest research into how children learn best. Through a three-year cycle of broad themes, children will regularly revisit and consolidate prior learning on British and world history, building understanding as they move through the school focusing on different aspects of the nature and impact of different civilisations through time, always developing an understanding of chronology and where their current learning sits within this. This opportunity to regularly revisit different periods of history allows children to develop deeper understanding, as learning moves from their working memory into a growing schema of knowledge that they can then draw upon to consider deeper questions around how humans and societies work.

Exciting and creative themes that build each year to give children a fully rounded picture of lifestyle, beliefs, achievements of peoples through the years.

• Hands on experience through trips and special events., to enhance each child’s cultural capital and life experiences.

• Use of our giant timeline to cement a clear understanding of chronology, as they quite literally, move through time seeing how different periods of time have informed the next.

• Overt teaching of historical vocabulary, giving children the language necessary to be able to describe what they have learnt and understood.

• The chance to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.

• Exposure to a wide range of historical sources and methods of historical analysis.

• High quality teaching through passion, praise, subject knowledge and enthusiasm.

Early Years

The learning in EYFS supports the NC by developing a chronological framework to help children understand where they and significant people and events sit in time by:

Capitalising on children’s desire to make sense of their own place in history
Exploring the lives of people who are familiar to them comparing similarities and differences
Introducing them to well known historical figures and events both within and beyond living memory
Cultivating children’s curiosity about people and events within and beyond their living memory
Exploring historical information and artefacts to ask questions and draw conclusions.
We use planned themes and capitalise on unplanned moments to talk about artefacts and significant events to develop a conceptual understanding of the passing of time.

IMPACT

The expected impact is that the children will:

 • have a clear understanding of chronology and the placing of major periods and events within it.

• understand how historical periods and events have impacted on the people and places that came after them.

• An understanding of how societies and civilisations work, grow and develop, and the similarities and differences of human experiences and beliefs through time.

• Be able to bring their historical understanding and enquiry skills to a range of contexts, using prior learning to inform, construct and develop their ideas, including the ability to ask pertinent questions.

• Be able to use different sources to draw information upon and reason about their reliability as a source.

• Be able to use historical language to explain their thoughts and understanding

• speak enthusiastically and knowledgeably about their learning.

• meet the end of Key Stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for History.

The impact of teaching of History will be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment and through regular self-assessment.

This general thematic approach with regular opportunities to learn about different periods of time, ensures that our children have the opportunity to learn about each time period at each stage of their education, building their understanding as they mature and develop their historical skills, while consolidating their previous learning at every opportunity. Aspects of history will also be taught wherever it fits, for instance in a Geography topic.

In our unique setting, where class set-ups vary according to cohort sizes, it ensures that all children cover all periods without any repetition and also ensures that year groups who may be split across two classes, get an equal exposure to each time period.

Focus periods:

Ancient civilisation – Ancient Egyptians

Non-European society that provides contrasts with British history – early Islamic civilisation