Intent
At Moorhill Primary School, we believe that History encourages children to consider how the past has influenced the present, and how a variety of elements influenced people’s actions. In our history curriculum we develop the skills of researching, comparing and evaluating evidence, as well as exploring past events, civilisations and personalities and the concepts of chronology.
At KS2 we follow the Opening Worlds curriculum which is a knowledge-rich humanities programme for teaching history, geography and religion in Years 3 to 5. Using this programme we are building our children's knowledge and vocabulary to ensure maximum progression as historians. The Opening Worlds curriculum is delivered through confident and fascinating storytelling. Lessons can begin or end with a story to help the children understand the true facts of the history they are learning, leaving misconceptions behind.
Lower down the school, at KS1, the children follow a tailored curriculum, again focusing on the historical story and the vocabulary behind it.
Implementation
At KS2 we follow the Opening Worlds curriculum which is a knowledge-rich humanities programme for teaching history, geography and religion in Years 3 to 5. Using this programme we are building our children's knowledge and vocabulary to ensure maximum progression as historians. The Opening Worlds curriculum is delivered through confident and fascinating storytelling. Lessons can begin or end with a story to help the children understand the true facts of the history they are learning, leaving misconceptions behind.
Impact
In History we want our children to be curious and ask questions; allowing them to learn more about the past. We want to immerse our children in history so that they recognise the importance of the past and that cultures can learn from their mistakes. As historians we want the children to think critically in order to ask perceptive questions, consider different evidence and arguments to develop perspective and judgement.
Ultimately at Moorhill, we aim to develop inquiring minds so that the children to understand the process of change, helping them to make sense of the present and how our society arrived here.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Pupil discussions and interviews about their learning
- An assessment of standards achieved judged against the skills and knowledge outlined in our Curriculum map (three times per year)
- Evidence of pupils work, gathered at the end of units.
By the time our children leave Moorhill Primary, as historians we want them 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
Learners with Special Educational Needs
At Moorhill, we scaffold and adapt the learning to enable all learners to succeed.
Learning is adapted through:
- Explicit teaching and modelling
- Scaffolded resources
- The use of concrete manipulatives
- Pictorial examples and representations
- Use of technological resources to support learning
- Frequent revisiting of skills
- Adult support
History Key Skills Grid