At Southmead Primary School, history plays an important role in developing children’s understanding of the people and events responsible for shaping the world that we live in. From Early Years Foundation Stage to Year 6, children will gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world, and how it has and will continue to mould our future.

Our intention is for pupils to be able to:
• know and understand coherent, chronological narratives;
• gain and deploy abstract vocabulary;
• understand historical concepts;
• enquire about significant people, places and events in history, and
• develop a historical perspective from their interpretations and growing knowledge (Article 13).

All children will question the past confidently, helping them to gain an understanding of the complexity of people’s lives and the process of change, as well as their own identity and the current challenges of their time.

To ensure our History Curriculum provides excellence in teaching and learning, it is taught progressively through carefully mapped out topics across and within year groups. This gives depth to pupils’ learning and enables all children to develop and enhance their knowledge and skills as stated in the National Curriculum.

Within each topic, carefully mapped historical skills ensure progression from EYFS to Year 6 and appear as ‘I can’ statements.  We take care to ensure that these skills run through all lessons and are taught through the historical knowledge being learned. From Year 1 to Year 6, every classroom has a Southmead Timeline – a working British History timeline – for children to add their learning to as they progress throughout the school. This helps pupils to understand specific dates, time periods and concurrent timelines clearly, linking to previous learning, dates from history topics and other curricular areas.

The topics are structured through questioning and enquiries, inviting all pupils to explore their curiosity and the opportunity to present their own ideas about their knowledge and understanding of the past. Our history curriculum is designed to ensure appropriate diversity in the significant figures that children learn about. Teachers plan and teach for the varying needs of all learners, differentiating activities where appropriate and required. Teachers have access to quality resources, planning and CPD through our membership with the Historical Association; however their lesson designs are not limited by this. We engage with expertise from outside sources and local community members, to continuously improve our curriculum and to acquire local historical knowledge to enrich our topics.

Our history curriculum is also enhanced with annual events being commemorated throughout the school, through lessons, circle times and assemblies.  In addition, teachers are given on-going support by the Subject Leader on planning and teaching, for example staff meetings, feedback and assistance on lesson planning; key historic terminologies and topic specific vocabulary to focus on; and recommended resources online to support learning. Teachers deliver our curriculum with an enthusiasm for curiosity, encouraging the children to express their views, feelings and opinions on the knowledge they have gained and to search for answers in varying sources (Article 12).