Intent

History has always been held in high regard at Creswell Junior School.

We aim to offer a high-quality history education that will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. The teaching of history should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past.

We aim to emphasise the importance of history in the local area and make full use of important historical resources. This will enable children to develop a full understanding of our localities rich history, in particular the history of mining and the internationally renowned Creswell Crags. We enrich our history curriculum through participation in local community projects, we create

The teaching of history should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past and should equip them with a broad range of knowledge and skills. We follow the National Curriculum and ensure that our history units are carefully planned and structured to develop a sense of chronology and cumulatively builds on previous learning.

We aim to impart a breadth of knowledge about both national and international history that builds our pupils cultural capital. We also aspire to enable our children to be independent thinkers who are equipped with the skills and confidence to: ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.

Pupils are enabled to develop their understanding of their own identity within a social, political, cultural and economic background. We hope to assist pupils’ to understand their own historical identity and the challenges of our time.

Implementation

At Creswell Junior School we ensure complete coverage of the key knowledge, skills and concepts required in History by the National Curriculum. To support our teaching, staff access a range of engaging planning and resources through the scheme ‘Rising Stars History’, which enables CJS to provide clear progression through years 3 to 6, allowing pupils to build on and develop their skills each year. To ensure that the needs of each individual child are met, teachers amend and adapt planning each lesson, where necessary, to deliver the required knowledge in an interesting and creative way with the aim of inspiring enthusiasm for the subject. Through using a range of assessment tools, differentiation is facilitated by teachers, to ensure that each pupil can access the History curriculum.

We divide our teaching of History into alternate half termly topics, alongside Geography, which we block together to allow children to focus on developing their knowledge and skills, helping students embed holistic knowledge. Pupils are taught through whole-class teaching, where the lessons are based around a ‘big question’, which provides the opportunity for children to use and apply enquiry, investigative, analytical, interpretative and evaluative skills. At the beginning of each unit, pupils are given a Knowledge Organiser for their personal reference, which details some key information, dates and vocabulary that will be required throughout the unit. Knowledge Organisers for each unit are used to support pupils with their acquisition of knowledge and are often referred to throughout the corresponding unit. Also included on the Knowledge Organiser is a ‘Sticky Knowledge’ section. This section includes knowledge that the children should have developed by the end of the Half Term. Alongside classroom activities, we plan for effective use of educational visits and visitors, to enrich and enhance the pupil’s learning experience and the History curriculum.A

Impact

Through the design of the curriculum, pupils will progress confidently with Historical knowledge and skills, relative to a child’s individual starting point. Children will be expected to leave Creswell Junior School reaching at least age-related expectations for History. Our History curriculum will also lead pupils to be enthusiastic history learners, evidenced in a range of ways, including pupil voice and their completed work.

This impact will be monitored through learning walks and lesson visits to ensure the teaching and assessment of History is of high quality and consistent across the school. To do this we will use a highly efficient tracking and assessment system (FFT Aspire), which allows formative assessments to be recorded, based on the knowledge the children have acquired and retained through the teaching. This will then provide leadership and class teachers with a clear view of progress and development and, in turn, will inform future practice.