‘People without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’ – Marcus Garvey

The aims and objectives of English are in line with the National Curriculum and enables children to:

● Understand how change happens over time both within Britain’s past and the wider world

● Develop and inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past

● Develop a wide vocabulary and understanding of evidence to form arguments and judgements

● Understand the complexity of people’s lives and the process of change

Intent

Our curriculum intent is to offer a progressive structure and sequence of lessons that develop a broader, deeper understanding of History through time from significant people and how these fit into the chronological timeline identified in the national curriculum. It will develop contextual knowledge of the changes through time of the British, local and world history. We will develop children’s passion and curiosity of knowing a time out of their living memory that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. The curriculum coverage offers a range of opportunities for thoughtful questioning, analysis of sources and investigation of past times, in which vocabulary is a key focus. Children are encouraged to take on a historian perspective and use the correct terminology within units. Our curriculum is called ‘Making a difference’ as all our learning is guiding our children to grow and develop into wonderful and thoughtful citizens who make a difference to their community and society, with opportunities to question, investigate and immerse themselves in class trips.

Implementation

The EYFS framework is structured differently to the national curriculum, as it is organised across three prime areas and four specific areas rather than subject areas, the most relevant statements for History focus on children’s understanding of the world.

In Key Stage 1, children begin to reflect on changes within their living memory and build upon this with events beyond their living memory in reflection to significant people. This is extended into Year 1, where they go on to explore the significance of historical events, and the importance of historical figures. In Year 2, children will begin to compare aspects of significant individuals’ lives from different periods of time.

In Key Stage 2 children develop further understanding of the chronological events from the past by looking at a range of historical periods and use this knowledge to compare, contrast and question how life was at that period and how has life changed over periods of time and reflect on the credibility of the sources they read. Children are encouraged to make judgement on the reliability and taught how to detect if they can trust sources. All children expand their prior knowledge through the progressive curriculum that challenges and immerses each child into history, with a range of opportunities to experience the past.

Impact

Our curriculum will provide children with understanding, and skills for thoughtful questioning, that will enable peace and prosperity for people and our planet, now and in the future. All children will be able to use historical vocabulary confidently and accurately to analyse and make reasonable judgement of the past. Children will begin to make relevant links from history to other subjects, such as geography, art and science. They will improve their enquiry skills and inquisitiveness about the world around them, and their impact on the world. All children will realise that they have choices to make in the world, developing a positive commitment to the environment and the future of the planet. Children will become competent in collecting, questioning credibility and analysing sources. They will be able to interpret arrange of sources of historical information and they will communicate. All children in the school will be able to speak confidently about their history learning, skills and knowledge.

Enrichment in 23/24 and 24/25

History enrichment weeks are planned progressively throughout the year to enhance cultural capital, experiences, knowledge, understanding and vocabulary. These include Gunpowder plot, Black history week and Gypsy, Roma Traveller week. During this time, children learn and become inspired through our studies on significant peoples.

At Heartwood, children are taken on a variety of trips to allow for history to come to life. An example of the trips the children have enjoyed during the academic years 23/24 and 24/25 are:

• Gressenhall – Victorians
• Visit from Edith Cavell
• Ancient Tudor house
• Swaffham War memorial
• St Peter and St Paul Church visit
• West stow- Anglo Saxon village
• Gressenhall Visit WWI
• Swaffham Muesem- Egyptians
• Swaffham – Local study
• Norwich Castle visit
• Gressenhall- Stone age