History

ā€œThe function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character ā€“ that is the goal of true educationā€ Martin Luther King, Jr.

ā€œOne child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world! Malala Yousafzai.

At Girnhill Infant School, we provide children with a high-quality history education, which supports pupils to gain a coherent knowledge and underusing of Britainā€™s past and the wider world. We believe that fostering childrenā€™s curiosity to know more about the past is imperative.

Pupils will be taught over a series of lessons which include:

  • Revisiting previously taught knowledge and skills
  • Historical Vocabulary
  • Exposure to enquiring, observing and chronology
  • Questioning and debating methods

At Girnhill Infant School we expose our pupils to a breadth of challenges, inspires learners to develop a love for history and encourage them to learn about major historical events and how it has affected our society today. Through enquiry and the use of debating, we intend to challenge and inspire our learners to make a positive contribution to the wider world.

We are ambitious in our expectations of all pupils, ensuring strong cross curricular links are made to develop children holistically.

Intent

At Girnhill Infant School, we provide children with a high-quality history education, which supports pupils to gain a coherent knowledge and underusing of Britainā€™s past and the wider world. We believe that fostering childrenā€™s curiosity to know more about the past is imperative. At Girnhill, History is taught through the ambitious National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, enhanced and supplemented with reach out History curriculum in order to support staff to plan small progressive steps in a specific and coherent teaching sequence. We are ambitious in our expectations in all children, ensuring cross-curricular links are made to develop children holistically. We map the National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework for History into a coherent and sequential progression model that outlines the substantive knowledge, disciplinary knowledge, vocabulary and sentence stems needed at each stage that will build cumulatively towards learners being able to use and apply the knowledge, skills and understanding across a range of concepts. At Girnhill, we value oracy as a powerful tool for learning in which children develop and deepen their subject knowledge and their understanding of History through talk in the classroom, which has been carefully planned, modelled and scaffolded in order for them to communicate their understanding effectively. Vocabulary is purposeful and progressive and modelled through the use of flashcards and teacher talk using ā€œmy turn your turnā€. Sentence stems are used to provide children with a model on how to speak like a historian and scaffold their talk effectively. Carefully considered questions are aimed to target misconceptions, gaps in learning and enable children to develop their explanations.

Implementation
We ensure that all teachers, including those who are non-specialists, have excellent subject knowledge and are supported in the implementation of the curriculum by the history subject leader. Ā Oracy is woven throughout History. The progression grid details the oracy expectations of each year group within the four strands of good talk. It also includes the tiered technical vocabulary all learners need to acquire and use in order to talk like a historian. This will be modelled using flash cards, teacher talk and opportunities are made for children to practice using the vocabulary throughout lessons. Suggested sentence stems are provided and used in order to scaffold responses. Opportunities for children to practise the skill of presentational talk will be further developed in history through the use of mode B learning such as history debate about the gunpowder plot.

Through using Rosenshineā€™s Principles, learners have the opportunity to revisit and build on prior knowledge. Daily review is used at the beginning of every session in order to activate prior learning to attach new learning to. High-quality modelling of skills and language is offered to our children and scaffolds are provided for difficult tasks. Visual success criteria is provided for learners every lesson. Classroom working walls demonstrate prior learning, promote the vocabulary specific to current learning, worked modelled examples, success criteria and visual sentence stems.

Impact

Children demonstrate their understanding of talking like a historian. The children are able to be historical thinkers by recalling key significant events and significant people. The children are talking like historians through using key vocabulary, which is evident through pupil voice during lesson observations and floor books. Pupil voice focuses on the ā€˜knowing more and remembering moreā€™ principle. The children are using historical thinking and approaches to become a fluent historical thinker.