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History

Intent

At Radford, we aim to deliver a high-quality history education that enables learners to gain an understanding of our local heritage, Britain’s past and that of the wider world. In line with the national curriculum 2014, we aim to ensure that all pupils: gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world which helps to stimulate pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past; are encouraged to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement; begin to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Implementation

History is taught as part of our theme curriculum and, like geography, it provides a central focus for many of our theme units.

The history curriculum at Radford Semele C of E Primary School makes full use of resources within the immediate and wider local area enabling children to develop a deep understanding of the rich history of their locality, for example within our Year 2 unit 'Fire and Light' finding out more about the impact of the Great Fire of Warwick and in our Year 6 unit 'WW2' learning all about the impact of the Blitz upon Coventry.

Our history curriculum is carefully planned and structured to ensure that current learning is linked to previous learning. We have thought carefully about the sequence and content of our history learning and have mapped out key concepts (substantive concepts) which are built upon throughout the children's history education at Radford. For example, one of our key concepts is 'power and leadership'. This concept is begun all the way down in Reception where children are exposed to picture books with key vocabulary like king, queen, throne and ruler. This is then developed throughout their time at school learning more about the British monarchy and leaders throughout history such as the role of Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors.

We support children to retain their learning from previous units by making use of learning journey displays as a reference point, using knowledge organisers and starting each lesson with 'Flashback Four' questions in which children are quizzed on something they learnt 'last lesson', 'last month', 'last topic' and 'last year'.

Our lessons inspire children’s curiosity by using a variety of primary and secondary sources to find out more about the past. Our history curriculum is also enriched through a range of visits and visitors to fully immerse the children in learning about the past.

Our history curriculum is also further developed by strong links to our English curriculum enabling further contextual learning.

Impact

The impact of our history curriculum is continually assessed to allow us to build upon prior knowledge, identify any misconceptions and extend children's learning.

Our History Lead completes a range of monitoring activities throughout the year to identify the impact of the children's learning.

When looking at children's books with them and discussing their history learning in March 2023, the children shared the following thoughts and reflections:

"The learning journey display in the classroom is useful to look at, especially the timeline." Bethany, Year 6
"Flashback Four questions are at the start of a theme lesson. They help me remember what we have done before." Jessie, Year 5
"I am proud of the letter I have written as an evacuee because I worked really hard on it and liked finding out more about evacuees." Jimi, Year 6
"I am proud of my writing all about Stonehenge as I found it very interesting. I really liked it when we had the Stone Age visitor." Bea, Year 3
"I like theme. Our theme lessons are fun!" Ruby, Year 1