HISTORY AT OAK GREEN SCHOOL

Why do we teach what we teach? (Our intent)

At Oak Green, our history curriculum is engaging and designed to ensure children  investigate links between how we lived in the past and the present day. They discover how things work and build a picture of their local area, British history and the wider world, through the exploration of ancient civilisations and powerful societies. We ensure our study of history represents a range of views considering the role of women, people of different ages, different heritages and other groups. The skills developed enable children to compare and identify what is important and how the past has affected the present day. In order to use historical learning, children will also develop their understanding of place, events, locality, how things work and how things were built, which enables creative links across our curriculum. Through teaching this, knowledge, skills and vocabulary will enable our children to become historians.

How do we teach it? (Our implementation)

We immerse ourselves in our history topics; our learning is centred on children’s curiosity and quality experiences that are memorable, worthwhile and challenging. Our history curriculum is logically sequenced and progressive, based on chronology and building historical knowledge, built from previous learning. Teaching in chronological order helps the children to recognise how things fit together in the wider world. In KS1, our learning begins with creating links between our children’s lives and those of lives in the past. In KS2 children undertake their own research and identify key questions to explore further and develop their historical knowledge using a variety of sources. This historical enquiry is essential to develop skills such as identifying and then contrasting similarities and differences, changes or continuity, causation, significance and identifying trends.

What is the difference that this makes? (Our impact)

Children will have the knowledge, skills and vocabulary to become history experts, developing their research skills and speaking and listening skills. History embeds an understanding of how we can solve issues by making changes. The children will be ready for the next stage of their learning having acquired rich knowledge and skills through the teaching of history at Oak Green and will have developed life skills for the future.