The Rosary
Catholic Primary School
History
Our approach to teaching history
At the Rosary Catholic Primary School, we believe engaging pupils with a relevant, exciting and challenging History curriculum which inspires curiosity and is appropriate for preparing them for an adult life in the 21st century is essential.
By linking learning to a range of topics, children have opportunities to investigate and interpret the past, understanding chronology, build an overview of Britain’s past as well as that of the wider world, and to be able to communicate historically.
The Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One
Through learning history from Year Reception through to the end of Year 2, pupils develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time. They come to understand where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework, and they start to identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods. Pupils are taught a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms. They are encouraged to ask and answer questions, and to choose and use parts of stories and other sources, to show that they know and understand key features of events. We also teach some of the ways we can find out about the past, and identify different ways in which the past is represented.
Key Stage Two
Through learning history from Year 3 through to the end of Year 6, pupils develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history. They form an understanding of connections, contrasts, and trends over time, and develop the appropriate use of historical terms. Pupils will regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about significance, change, cause, similarity and difference. Pupils learn how to construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information, and they understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.
Our core aim for all pupils
To engage our pupils with relevant, exciting and challenging History topics that inspire curiosity and prepare them for an adult life in the 21st century, by:
- Helping pupils understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as the challenges of their time.
- Developing critical thinking leading to reasoned judgements that are logical and well thought out. Not merely accepting arguments and conclusions as they are presented but having a healthy, discerning and questioning attitude about new information.
- Supporting pupils to appreciate that all knowledge is socially constructed and its objectivity and reliability is therefore open to challenge and question through asking perceptive questions, weighing evidence, sifting arguments and developing perspective and judgement.
- Building a sense of identity and belonging on a personal, cultural, national and global level as pupils come to appreciate the diversity of human experience and consequently understand more about themselves and society.
- Enabling the learner to understand core concepts and most notably cause and consequence, similarity and difference, continuity and change, change and progress/regression, significance, evidence, chronology, empathy, context, diversity, perspective, interconnectivity and validity, all of which have broad relevance and significance in the modern world.
