History

Our vision

We believe at Cullingworth Village Primary School that our pupils need to learn key skills and knowledge in History because of the rich and varied history within the village they live in. A Bronze Age settlement, the development of the mill industries, the industrial revolution, the Victorian railway, the viaduct, and the cenotaph are all within our immediate local area. History enables them to have a better understanding of the factors that have shaped our local environment as well as the wider world.

Our intent

Alongside ensuring fidelity to the National Curriculum, we want our children to:

• know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
• understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
• understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Implementation

History is taught through our cross-curricular approach meaning it is always interesting, stimulating and relevant. We introduce our topics by discussing our knowledge organisers, thinking about the knowledge and skills we have already acquired in earlier year groups and introducing our ‘key question’. This directly focuses the study and enables children to understand what their main end point is for the unit giving the unit, purpose and relevance. We plan in exciting hooks to engage and enthuse the pupils.

During Key Stage 1 pupils learn about people's lives and lifestyles. They find out about significant men, women, children and events from the recent and more distant past, including those from both Britain and the wider world. They listen and respond to stories and use sources of information to help them ask and answer questions. They learn how the past is different from the present.

During Key Stage 2 pupils learn about significant people, events and places from both the recent and more distant past. They learn about change and continuity in their own area, in Britain and in other parts of the world. They look at history in a variety of ways, for example from political, economic, technological and scientific, social, religious, cultural or aesthetic perspectives. They use different sources of information to help them investigate the past both in depth and in overview, using dates and historical vocabulary to describe events, people and developments. They also learn that the past can be represented and interpreted in different ways.

As well as the wider curriculum, the children engage in home learning activities in inline with their theme in school. 

History Learning in EYFS:

The EYFS framework is structured very differently to the national curriculum as it is organised across seven areas of learning rather than subject areas. The aim of this document is to help subject leaders to understand how the skills taught across EYFS feed into national curriculum subjects.

This document demonstrates which statements from the 2020 Development Matters are prerequisite skills for history within the national curriculum. The table below outlines the most relevant statements taken from the Early Learning Goals in the EYFS statutory framework and the Development Matters age ranges for Three and Four-Year-Olds and Reception to match the programme of study for history.

The most relevant statements for history are taken from the following area of learning:

• Understanding the World

Chronology in EYFS.....

The Queen's Platinum Jubilee June 2022

We celebrated the Queen's Platinum Jubilee by dressing in 50’s inspired clothing or something red, white and blue. Our history ambassadors lead a presentation about Her Majesty The Queen. We came together to sing the national anthem and the choir treated everyone to even more performances. Across school, we also made cards that will be sent to Buckingham Palace.