HISTORY 

at Clyst Heath Nursery and Community Primary School 

Intent  

History should be concerned with stimulating the children’s interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past. We want the children to develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their local history along with an understanding of aspects of British history and of the wider world. We teach children to understand how events in the past have influenced our lives today; we also teach the children to investigate these past events and, by so doing, develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem solving. 

We aim for all pupils: 

• To develop a knowledge and understanding of the past through an enquiry-based approach.   
• To have an appreciation of our local history and cultural heritage.   
• To explore human achievement in our own and other cultures. 

Implementation 

We will achieve this through a focus on: - 

Teaching all history using a main enquiry question to drive the lessons. 

• All history units will be broken into sub-enquiries which involves at least six lessons. 
• History units will be clearly sequenced for progression and this will incorporate the key knowledge.   
• Enquiries will be taught using a range of high-quality resources. 
• Each teaching unit will begin with a chronology lesson that looks back and consolidates their chronological framework before extending and adding to this framework.   
• Fostering enthusiasm and curiosity through fieldwork and engaging enquiry-led lessons.   
• History displays will include the key enquiry question, important vocabulary, children’s work and a timeline.   

Each history unit will end with a final assessment piece which will help to inform the teachers’ judgement when completing the end of term assessments 

Impact 

All history is clearly planned for progression through an enquiry-based approach enabling the children to investigate the past. History units build sequentially on the children’s understanding of key history skills and culminate in a final assessment activity. The curriculum is broad and offers a range of chronological periods and geographical perspectives to enable children to have both a good understanding of their local history whilst also developing the bigger global picture.