History

St Gabriel’s History curriculum has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum.

Our History curriculum is organised over a two year cycle in a progression model that outlines the skills, knowledge and vocabulary to be taught in a sequentially coherent way:  Chronological Understanding; Knowledge & Understanding of Events in the Past; Historical Enquiry; Historical Interpretation; Organisation and Communication are all mapped out to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge.  When covering each of these strands, the content will be carefully organised through a Long Term Plan.

Recurring concepts/themes are also mapped out on the Long Term Plan: Food and Farming, Beliefs, Settlements, Culture and Pastimes, Travel and Exploration, Conflict, Society, Location and Legacy.  These are used as a starting point when planning an enquiry.

Content knowledge, vocabulary and skills will then be planned for in a greater level of detail in the Medium Term Plan, where appropriate cross-curricular links are made to strengthen connections and understanding for pupils.

All learning will start by placing the time period on a timeline and by making links to previous areas studied.

Pupils will be introduced to an enquiry question which is broken down into sub-questions to investigate using historical skills.

Staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow pupils to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.  This will be made explicit in lessons to support children in the recall of previous learning, making meaningful links between the areas studied and to support them in creating an historical narrative.

Knowledge organisers can be used as a support for planning and to support children in retaining new facts and vocabulary in their long term memory.

We recognise that we have children of differing abilities in History and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities by adapting the challenge of the task to the child’s ability. We achieve this in a range of ways:

• Setting tasks which can have a variety of responses.
• Grouping children by ability and setting different tasks for each ability group.
• Providing resources of different complexity depending on the ability of the child.
• Using Teaching Assistants to support children individually or in groups.
• Organising children in such a way that they receive support from their peers
• Providing word mats, prompts or other scaffolds for learning

Consistent learning walls in every classroom will provide constant scaffolding for children. Tier three subject specific vocabulary is displayed on the learning wall along with key facts and questions, knowledge organisers and model exemplars of the work being taught. Visual prompts for the concepts and skills to be taught in the lesson are on display and should be referred to, enabling pupils to make strong connections with prior learning and to aid their understanding of the historical skill they are using.

Where possible, a Local History focus will be mapped into the History schemes of work to enable to pupils to appreciate the History of Leigh and to develop a sense of pride in where they live.

Our young historians will be given a variety of experiences both in and out of the classroom, where appropriate, to create memorable learning opportunities and to further support and develop their understanding.

History assessment is formative, to inform teachers with their planning, lesson activities and differentiation.  Assessment opportunities are planned for and at the end of a unit of work, staff will make judgements on whether a child is working below, at or above year group expectations.  This information will be placed on the History tracking grid at the end of the year.