St Aldhelm’s History Curriculum Intent 

• Provide children with creative and memorable classroom opportunities to create links between periods of time and contextual links to places within the world.   

• Equip children with tools, confidence and knowledge to develop an inquisitive approach towards  both places and people, now and within periods of history. 

• Provide opportunities to inspire and enhance the humanities learning journey through educational visits, interactive resources and drawing on the experiences of others

Most history and geography learning is completed throughout ‘enquiry’ projects and is completed in enquiry books where children are given the opportunity to reflect on cross curricular learning.  

Resources for both history are sourced and resourced in a shared area of the school. History resources include a range of objects to support chronological understanding. Teachers are aware of websites and companies that can develop learning opportunities for children and be used to create school trips. Our continued commitment to Resources for Learning subscription boxes also ensures we have a high level of literature to support our history projects too. 

In History, there is a focus on exploring historical artefacts and primary sources, including stories to introduce and bring historical characters and events to life. This is particularly evident in KS1 when considering events such as the Great Fire of London.  Visits to historic sites, and outside opportunities also encouraged wherever possible. Visitors may also be encouraged to come into school to share knowledge/ workshops. In history, chronology is important and the teaching of ‘time’ and linking events to one another is crucial. As children mature in their approach to understanding history, they concentrate more so on past events, life-styles and activities of people in the past.  

Characteristics to develop as an effective historian:

• An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes. 

• The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences. 

• The ability to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources. 

• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.  

• A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.  

• A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgements. 

• A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.